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Early Mackinac 



THE FAIRY ISLAND.' 



A SKEZTOH 



BY vVr.- 



Meade C Williams, 



Name.— Indian Legends.— Indian Character.— French 
English and A^ierican Flags.— Old Fort.— Mili- 
tary History, and War op 1812.— Fur Trade. 
—Early Village Life.— Christian Mis- 
sions and Churches.— Natural At- 
tractions.— Antiquities. 



tju 



BUSCn.'^RT BU;JS., PRINT. 
ST, LiOUI3, MO. 



■M/L l^/J 



COPYRIGHT, 1897, 
BY MEADE C. WILLIAMS 



/// 



TO ALL THOSE 
WHO HAVING ONCE KNOWN 

THE ISLAND OF THE STRAITS 

STILL REMEMBER ITS CHARM, 

AND REMAIN UNDER THE POWER OF ITS SPELL, 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED. 



CONTENTS. 



PHGE. 

Preface G 

CHAPTER I. 

The Islands name — Its etymology— Its sacredness in the Indian's 
mind — Indian legends — Poetic vein in Indian nomenclature— The 

passing of the Indian 7 

CHAPTER II. 

Early settling under the French flag— Pioneer military post on 
northern mainland— La Hontan's visit— Removal to Detroit and 
return— Post established on southern mainland— English sway- 
Discontent of the Indians— Ball game and massacre— Alexander 

Henry— Wawatam— Skull Cave 15 

CHAPTER III. 

Removal to the island proposed— Transfer effected— Major Sinclair 

—Captain Robertson (Robinson)— Rum— Building the fort 25 

CHAPTER IV. 

American Independence achieved— England's delay in surrendering 
Mackinac— A second treaty required to secure American oc- 
cupation—Greenville treaty vrith the Indians— Fur trade- 
Washington Irving's description of Macldnac— Another picture. 33 
CHAPTER V. 

"War of 1812 opens— "British Landing"— Fort Mackinac captured by 
the British— Of great importance to British interests— Official 

reports— Building of Fort Holmes (Fort George) 42 

CHAPTER VI. 

American expedition to recover Mackinac— Effects entrance at 
'British Landing"— The battle— Major Holmes killed— Ameri- 
can forces withdraw- Destroy British supplies in Georgian Bay- 
Blockade effected— Blocade raised— Mackinac again ceded to 
United States in 1815— Old cannon— Early officers at the fort- 
Fort given over to State of Michigan , . , , 50 

CHAPTER VII. 

Early citizens of the island— Ramsey Crooks as connected with the 
fur trade— Robert Stuart, resident partner in the Astor Fur Co. 
—Henry R Schoolcraft, government agent, scientist and ex- 
plorer—His literary works and character, ,.,,,,.,,,.,,. 64 



CONTENTS. 5 

CHAPTER VIII. PHQE. 

Jesuit missions— Mai-quette—Ctiurcli of St. Ann at Old Mackinac, 
and on the island— Trinity Church— Mission School and Old 

Mission Church— Story of Chuska— Old Church restored 73 

CHAPTER IX. 
Exceeding beauty of the island— Woods— Vegetation— Water 
views— Curiosities in stone— Arch Rock— Sugar Loaf — Robinson's 

Folly and its legends 87 

CHAPTER X. 
The island's celebrity as a place of resort — Early day visitors — 
Books of description— Countess Ossoli (Margaret Fuller)— A New 
York doctors visit in 1835— Captain Marryatt— Mrs. Jameson- 
Miss Harriet Martineau 99 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Bird's eye view of Mackinac Island . . Frontispiece . 

La Hontan's Sketch, 1688 10 

Fort Mackinac 32 

Mackinac Beach 41 

Henry R. Schoolcraft 69 

Old Mission Church 81 

Sugar Loaf 91 

Arch Rock 93 

Tangle wood 101} 

One of the Drives 106 



PREFACE. 



I have had thirteen summers at Mackinac. Fellow visi- 
tors there have often suggested that I should furnish, in 
written form, some studies of the island. 

While it is believed this sketch may have interest for the 
general reader, it at the same time carries a local coloring 
which miy more particularly appeal to those who know the 
place. As the charm of the locality is due, in no small 
degree, to that halo of antiquity which hangs over it, I have 
felt warranted in restricting myself to early Mackinac, with 
but slight allusion to anything short of sixty years ago. 

This sketch embodies the result of considerable research 
among books and documents. Some fifty different works 
have been consulted. Generally, though not always, these 
are indicated in the narrative. As the reader will preceive, I 
am greatly indebted to the various writings of Henry R. 
Schoolcraft. I would also express my special sense of 
obligation to the valuable series of "Collections and Research- 
es," a work carried on by the 3]ichigan Pioneer and Historical 
Society. These Collections, at present, number twenty-six 
volumes. The use they make of the important "Haldimand 
Papers" of Canada, brings to hand much of the early military 
history of the Straits and of the Island fort. Instead of a 
foot-note reference in every case, I make here a general 
acknowledgement. 

During the progress of my work [ have had great satis- 
faction in a correspondence with Col.Wm. Montague Ferry, of 
Park City, Utah, a son of the Rev. Wm. M. Ferry, of the 
Island Mission work of long ago, and who well remembers 
Mackinac as the home of his childhood days. 
>S^^ Louis, Mo., {Inghneuk, 

June, 1897. Mackinac Island.) 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



CHAPTER I. 

Michilimackinac was the old-time name, not 
for our beautiful island alone, but for all the 
country round about us, north to Lake Superior and 
west to the head of Green Bay. It was the island 
only that was first thus called. The word grew 
out of it, and, small bit of land though it is, it 
threw its name over a vast territory 

The name has been variously spelled. In old 
histories, reports, and other documents, I have 
found Mishlimakina, Missilimakinac, Mishilmaki, 
Michilimachina, Missilimakina, Michiliakimawk; 
while in one standard history, when this region is 
spoken of, it invariably appears as Michilimaki- 
naw.* In its abbreviated form it has been writ- 
ten Mackinack, Macina, Maquina, Mackinac, Mack- 
inaw. In all the earlier periods following the set- 
tlement of the island by the whites, in books of 
travel and of history, the two ways of writing it 
were used interchangeably, though the form Mack- 
inaw/; was most commonly adopted. Also in many 
of the early maps and atlases it is so given. Steam- 
boat companies running boats to the island, gener- 
ally advertised them as of the "Mackinaw Line," 
and likewise business firms here so wrote the word 

*Henry Adams" "History of the United States," 7 



y EARLY MACKINAC. 

-—at least as frequently as the other form. So this 
was quite general during all that time, except that 
the official name of the military post held to the 
termination "ac." But since the railroad compan- 
ies built their modern terminal town across the 
straits and called it Mackinaw City, for the sake of 
convenience in distinguishing, the name of the island 
is now uniformly written Mackinac. In pronuncia- 
tion, however, without attempting to settle the 
question by the laws of orthoepy, it may be re- 
marked that it is considered very incorrect; and to 
the ears of residents, and old habitues and lovers of 
the island, it is almost distressful to hear it pro- 
nounced anything else than Mackinaw. A com- 
promise may perhaps be allowed by taking the 
name as if it bore the termination "ah, " and giving 
it a sourd between the flat and the very broad. 
The c must never be sounded. 

The origin of the word is in some obscurity. 
All agree that the first part of it, "Michi," means 
great. It is preserved in the name of the State, 
Michigan, and in the name of the Lake, Lake 
Michigan — meaning great v/aters. The French 
took it up, spelling it Missi; hence the name of the 
river Mississippi — great river, the father of waters. 
Concerning the remainder of the name which fol- 
lows the Michi, we are not so sure. The common 
view is that the form of the island, high-backed in 
the center, as it rises above the waters, and hand- 
somely crowning the whole, suggested to the 
Indian fancy the figure of a large turtle. Hence 
that it became known as the land of the Great 
Turtle. 



ORIGIN OF THE WORD. \) 

Schoolcraft, who is the best authority on all 
questions pertaining to the Indian language, as well 
as to the customs and characteristics of that race, 
says that the original name of the island was 
Mishi-min-auk-in-ong, and that it means the place 
of the great dancing spirits — these spirits being of 
the more inferior and diminutive order, instead of 
belonging to the Indian collection of gods; a kind 
of pukwees, or fairies, or sprites, rather than 
Manitous. 

Heriot, an English traveler in North America, 
and who published his "Travels through the 
Canadas, " in 1807. touched at Mackinac and reports 
as the origin of the name that the island had been 
given, as their special abode, to an order of spirits 
called Imakinakos, and that "from these aerial 
possessors it had received the appellation of Mich i- 
limackinac." 

Perhaps these different views can in a manner 
be combined. The turtle was held in great rever- 
ence by the Indians. In their mythology it was 
regarded as a symbol of the earth and addressed as 
mother."^ The fancied physical resemblance of the 
island could easily work in with their mythical 

*Anclrew Lang iu his "Myths, Ritual and Rehgious,"' (Vol. 1, p. 182), 
mentions certain of the Indian tribes as holding the fancy that the 
earth grew out of the tortoise. One form that the legend took was 
that Atahenstic. a woman of the upper world, had been banished from 
the sky, and falling, dropped on the back of a turtle in the midst of the 
waters. The turtle consulted with the other aquatic animals and one 
of them, generally said to have been the musk-rat, fished up some soil, 
and fashioned the earth. Here the woman gave birth to twins and thus 
began the peopling of the globe Thus iu the crude fancy of the 
Western Indians do we find a reflection or fragment of the ancient 
myth which once prevailed in the oriental mind that the world rested 
on the back of a turtle. 



10 EARLY MACKINAC. 

idea of the turtle, apart from its having any ety- 
mological connection. And thus whatever way the 
name is studied it becomes associated with some 
Indian conception of spirit. All singular or strik- 
ing formations in the work of nature — objects that 
were of an unusual kind or very large and impos- 
ing, as lofty rocks, overhanging cliffs, mountains, 
lakes and such like — these poor untutored children 
looked upon as the habitations of spirits. Our 
island therefore, physically so different from the 
other islands and the mainland about it, with its 
glens and crags, and its many remarkable and 
strange looking stone formations, would easily be 
peopled for them with spectres and spirits. They 
regarded it as their sacred island, and a favorite 
haunt of their gods, and cherished for it feelings 
akin to awe; and from the surrounding regions 
would bring their dead for burial in its soil. The 
island seems to have been rather their place of 
resort and temporary sojourn than of permanent 
abode. 

There is something very fascinating in the 
fragments of early Indian fancies and traditions 
and legends which are associated with our island. 
It is interesting, too, to note how the legends and 
the mythology of the Indians and their dim 
religious Ideas so often took a poetic form. For 
instance, in their pagan and untutoi-ed minds they 
thought of the island as the favorite visiting place 
of Michibou, the great one of the waters, their 
Manitou of these lakes. That, coming over the 
waters from the sunrise in the east, he would touch 
the beach at the foot of Arch Rock; that the large 



LEGENDARY. 11 

mass of stone which had fallen from the face of the 
cliff in the long ago, causing the arch above, was 
"Manitou's Landing Place;'' that the arch was his 
gateway through which, ascending the hill, he 
would proceed in stately step to "Sugar Loaf," 
which in fancy they made to be his wigwam, or 
lodge — the cave on the west side, known to all to- 
day, being his doorway. Then again, the Sugar 
Loaf stone and others of that conical, pyramidal 
shape — such as the one which stands in St. Ignace 
and in different parts of the northern peninsula, and 
yet others which formerly stood on the island — 
that these strange, uncanny looking rock forma- 
tions, by a modification of fancy, they would 
personify with great giants or monsters who tower- 
ed over them as sentinels to note whether they 
made due offerings and sacrifices to Manitou, their 
success in the hunting and tra^^ping being condi- 
tioned on this kind of religious fidelity.* 

The Indians, so spontaneously recognizing the 
world of spirits, were fruitful in ideas and sentiments 
of reverence. We are told there were no profane 
words in their vocabulary. Think of a people who 
did not know how to swear because they had no 

*Schoolcraft noted a curious fact among the Chippe was— that they 
fancied the woods and shores and islands were inhabited by innumerable 
spirits who during the summer season were wakeful and quick to hear 
everything that was spoken, but during the winter existed only in a 
torpid state. The Indian story tellers and legend mongers were there- 
fore very free in amusing their listeners with fanciful and mysterious 
tales during the winter, as the spirits were then in a state of inactivity 
and could not hear. But their story telling was suspended the moment 
the piping of the frog announced that spring had opened. That he had 
endeavored, but in vain, to get any of them to relate this sort of 
imaginary lore at any other time than in the winter. They would always 
evade his attempts by some easy or indifferent remark. 



12 EARTHY MACKINAC. 

words for it ! It is said tluit the nearest they ap- 
proached to cursing a man was to call him "a bad 
dog." So too in tlie nomenclature of wild or un- 
couth looking objects of nature — w^hile our white 
pioneers and prospecting miners and avani couriers 
of civilization in the west have so often attached to 
such objects the name of the devil, as "Devil's 
Lake," "Devil's Slide," "Devil's Half-acre," 
"Devil's Scuttle-hole,'' and such like, the Indians 
generally gave them some expressive and harmoni- 
ous poetic name. On the island we have the 
"Devil's Kitchen," but w^e may feel sure that was 
not of the Indian's naming. The writer of this 
sketch was told by an old resident who had passed 
the whole of an extremely long life on the island,* 
that once, long ago, ? shoemaker took up his abode 
in that cavern and did his cobbling and his cooking 
there. Possibly that gave rise to the name. 

In this habit of nomenclature which linked 
their ideas with the phenomena of physical nature, 
we see a beautiful though often rude and childish 
vein of poetry. Their name for the great cataract 
of Niagara was "Thunder of the Waters," as that 
for the gentle falls now within the limits of the 
City of Minneapolis was Minnehaha, or "Laughing 
Waters." The familiar white fish of these regions 
was the "Deer of the waters." To the horizon 
limit when they looked out on the lake to where 
the thread-like line of blue water loses itself in the 
clouds and sky, they gave a name which signified 
the "Par off sight of water." Their name for 
General Wayne, who did so much to overthrow 

*Ignace Pelotte, died Ftb. 1897. 



POETIC VEIN 13 

their power in the west, was "Strong Wind;" while 
the American soldiers from their use of the sabre 
and sword in battle, were knov^n as the "Long 
Knives." Their conception of a fort with its 
mounted cannon was "The high-fenced house of 
thunder, "while the discharge was "The arrow that 
flies out of the big gun." A little son of Mr. 
Schoolcraft, when he was Government agent at the 
Sault, was admiringly called by the Chippewas, 
Penaci, or "Tlie Bird;'' and the English authoress, 
Mrs. Jameson, when visiting there, after "shooting 
tiie rapids" with the Indian guides, was re-named 
' 'The woman of the Bright Foam. ' ' As their whole 
life and range of observation was constantly asso- 
ciated with tempests, forests, waters and skies, and 
all the various phenomena of physical nature, this 
gave shape to their conceptions and their question- 
ings. It has always seemed very significant that 
when John Eliot, the pioneer missionary to the 
Indians in New England, two hundred and fifty 
years ago, began his instructions among them, he 
was met at once by their eager and long pent-up 
questions of wonder: "What makes the sea ebb 
and flow?" "What makes the wind blow?" "What 
makes the thunder?" 

Parkman represents the Jesuit missionaries 
in Canada, two centuries since, as testifying tliat 
the Indians had a more acute intellect than the 
peasantry in Prance. At his best, however, the 
red man was but the "Child of the forest," and in 
the presence of the pale faces was not destined to 
endure. They are a doomed and a passing race. 
Many reasons, or causes, might be assigned for 



14 EARLY MACKINAC. 

this. One reason is that which was giv^en by a 
very thoughtful Indian in a speech on a certain 
occasion long ago, before a company of government 
agents here on our island beach. Said he, very 
re flectively : "The white man no sooner came than 
he thought of preparing the way for his posterity; 
Qie red man never thought of that.'' In this pro- 
found observation is embodied one of the latest de- 
ductions in social philosophy. 

Of course, in thus speaking of the Indians, 
reference is had to manifestations of their mental 
character as seen in earlier days, and not to Indian 
life of the present, as seen in the western reserva- 
tions.* 

*Catlin, who ranks next to Schoolcraft in his study of the Indians, in 
an extensive <*lassiiication of quahties, contrasts their original character 
in their "primitive and disabused state" with their secondary character 
after "being beaten into a sort of civilization." From being handsome 
he says they had become ugly; from free, enslaved; from affable, re- 
served; from bold, timid; from warlike, peaceable; from proud, humble; 
from independent, dependent; from healthy, sickly; from sober, 
drunken; from increasing, decreasing; from landholders, beggars. 



CHAPTER II. 

The annals of our island since its discovery 
and occupation by the whites carry us back to an 
early day. Explorers from France and settlers 
from Canada were here two hundred and fifty 
years ago. Traces of French and Indian mixture 
are everywhere seen. Indian wars and massacres 
have reddened these shores. Stories of English 
power victorious over French, in far back colonial 
times, have a part in the history of this region. 
In a later day the island had its stirring incidents 
in our own war with Great Britain, in 1812. Here 
was the headquarters of the Mackinaw Fur Company 
and the Southwest Fur Company, and afterwards 
of the powerful American Fur Company, of which 
John Jacob Astor was the chief proprietor, and 
which made our island for the time the largest seat 
of com merce in the western country. * Christianity, 
too, has had here its early enterprises, at the 
hands first of the French Jesuit missionaries of the 
17th Century, and afterwards of Protestantism. 

In regard to early military annals, history 
points to the fact that with the exception of the 
brief abandonment by the French forces from about 
1701 to 1714, this region of the straits had been a 
seat of continuous military occupation from the 

♦Detroit. Vincennes, St. Louis, Lake Winnipeg. Lake of the Woods, 
and other far distant points were but dependencies of MichUimackinac, 
as the metropolis of the Indian trade. 

15 



16 EARLY MACKINAC. 

last quarter of the 17th century down to 1895, when 
to the surprise and regret of all who knew the 
island's history, the United States Government 
abolished the jDost. Three different flags have 
floated over a fort in these Straits of Mackinaw 
during this long period j^ast. These have been in 
the order of French, English and American. The 
French were the pioneers. They established Fort 
Michilimackinac, over where now tlie town of St. 
Ignace stands, four miles across on the northern 
peninsula. This was about two hundred and 
twenty-live years ago. 

Baron La Hontan, who had come from France 
to Canada at an early age and afterwards became 
Lord Lieutenant of a French Colony in Newfound- 
land, visited our Mackinac neighborhood in 1688. 
In a publication of his travels in North America he 
gives three letters from the Michilimakinac settle- 
ment of that day.* As accompanying his picture 
on the adjoining page he thus writes: "You can 
scarce believe what vast sholes of white fish are 
catched about the middle of the channel, between 
the continent and the isle of Missilimakinac. The 
Oiitaouas\ and the Hiirons could never subsist 
here, without that fishery; for they are obliged to 
travel about twenty leagues in the w^oods befoi'e 
they can kill any harts or elks, and it would be an 
infinite fatigue to carry their carcasses so far over 
land. This sort of white fish, in my opinion, is the 
only one in all these lakes that can be called good; 

*The book was first published in French, 1705. Aft^rwarcls au en- 
larged edition appeared in English form, 1735. 
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LA hontan's letter. 17 

and indeed it goes oeyond all other sorts of river 
fish. Above all, it has one singular property, 
namely, that all sorts of sauces spoil it, so that it 
is always eat either boiled or broiled, without any 
manner of seasoning. 

*'In the channel I now speak of, the currents 
are so strong that they sometimes suck in the nets, 
though they are two or three leagues off. In some 
seasons it so falls out that the currents run three 
days eastward, two days to the west, one to the 
south, and four northward; sometimes more and 
sometimes less. The cause of this diversity of 
currents could never be fathomed, for in a calm 
they will run, in the space of one day, to all the 
points of the com^Dass, i. e., sometimes in one way, 
sometimes another, without any limitation of time; 
so that the decisioQ of the matter must be left to 
the disciple of Copernicus. 

'Here the savage catch trouts as big as one's 
thigh; with a sort of fishing-hook made in the 
form of an awl, and made fast to a piece of brass 
wire, which is joined to the line that reaches to the 
bottom of the lake. This sort of fishery is carried 
on not only with hooks, but with nets, and that in 
winter as well as in summer. 

"The Outaouas and the Huron s have very 
pleasant fields, in which they sow Indian corn, 
pease and beans, besides a sort of citruls and 
melons. Sometimes these savages sell their corn 
very dear, especially when the beaver hunting 
happens not to take well; upon which occasion 
they make sufficient reprisals upon us for the e^' 
tniviigant price of our commodities, " 



18 EARLY MACKINAC. 

For a short interval the French Government, 
under the instigation of the post Commander, 
Cadillac, withdrew the garrison (as already men- 
tioned) and abandoned this region as a military 
seat in favor of the new settlement at Detroit. 
Tliat was about the opening of last century. But 
this vacating was soon seen to be bad policy, and 
in 1714 the fort was re-established. When, how- 
ever, the restored fort becomes known again in 
history it is found located on the Southern Penin- 
sula, across the Straits, where now stands the 
railroad town, Mackinaw City. Whether on the 
return from Detroit the military at once located the 
fort there, or first resumed the old site at St. 
Ignace, and removed to the other Peninsula at some 
later period, is not definitely known. At any rate 
it Avas the same military occupation, and the same 
Fort Michilimackinac, irrespective of the time of 
change in the site. It stood about half a mile from 
the present Light House, and southwesterly from 
tlie railroad station; and was so close to the water's 
edge that when the wi)id was in the west tlie waves 
would often break into the stockade. Its site is 
plainly visible 'to-day, and visitors still find relics 
in .the sand. 

After the conquest of Canada by the English, 
in the deciding battle of Quebec on the heights of 
Abraham in 1759, all this country around came un- 
der the English flag. The Indians, however, liked 
better the French dominion and their personal re- 
lations with the French people than they did the 
English sway and English associations, and they 
did not take kindly to the transfer, One reason 



PONTIAC'S CONSPIRACY. 19 

for this preference is said to have been that the 
P^-ench were accustomed to pay respect to all the 
Indians' religious or superstitious observances, 
whereas an Englishman or an American was apt, 
either to take no pains to conceal his contempt for 
their superstitions or to speak out bluntly against 
them. To this can be added the well known fact of 
the greater readiness of the French to intermarry 
and domesticate with the Indian.* 

This strong feeling of discontent under the 
change of empire, on the part of the Indians, was 
fanned and skillfully directed by that great leader 
and diplomate, Pontiac;t and "The Conspiracy of 
Pontiac" is the well-known title of one of Park- 
man's series of North American history. This 
conspiracy was no less than a deep and compre- 
hensive scheme, matured by this most crafty 
savage chief, for a general Indian rising, in which 
all English forts, from the south to the upper 
lakes, were to be attacked simultaneously, and the 
English rule forever destroyed. The Indians would 
vauntingly say, "You have conquered the French, 
but you have not conquered us." Oat of twelve 
forts, nine were taken, but not long held. 



* "When the French arrived at this place," said a Chipfpewa Chief at 
a council once held at the Sault, "they came and kissed us. They called 
us children and we found them fathers. We lived like brothers in the 
same lodge."— Schoolcraft, in an address before the Michigan Historical 
Society in 1830. 

"In force of character, subtlety, eloquence and dariufr, Pontiac 
was perhaps the most brilliant man the Indians of North America have 
produced."— ■ -.4 History of Canada," by Chas. G. D. Roberts. Schoolcraft 
rated him in the same way. Drake, in his ''Indians of the No ■■Vi west'* 
says of him: "His fame iu his time was not coufined to his own coulinent 
but the gazettes of Europe spread it also." 



20 EARLY MACKINAC. 

While this sclieme was, of course, a failure in 
its larger features, t1ie plot against the old post of 
Alichilimackhiac across the water succeeded only 
loo well. The strategy and horrors of that capture 
read like a tale of fiction. The story is old, but lo 
repeat it in this sketcli will not be amiss. It may 
be introduced under the title of 

AN HISTORIC BALL GAME. 

In 1763 a band of thirty-five English soldiers 
and their officers formed its garrison. Encamped 
in the woods not far off was a large number of In- 
dians. One morning in the month of June, with 
great show of friendliness, the Indians invited the 
soldiers to witness their match game of ball, just 
outside the stockade. The Chippewas were to play 
the Sacs.'^ Then, as now, ball playing had great 
fascination. And as this was the birtliday of the 
King of England, and the men were in the celebra- 
ting mood, some indulgence was shown, discipline 
for a time relaxed, gates were left ajar and the 
soldiers and officers carelessly sauntered and look- 
ed on, enjoying tlie sport. In the course of play, 
and as a part of the pre-concerted stratagem, the 
ball was so struck that it fell within the stockade 
line of the fort. As if pursuing it, the players 
came rushing to the gate. The soldiers, intent in 
w^atching the play, suspected nothing. The Indians 
now had an open way within, and instantly turned 
from ball-players into warriors, and a terrifying 
"whoop" was given. The squaws, as sharing in 
the plot, were standing near with tomahawks con- 
cealed under their blankets. These were seized, 

*Baggativvay was their kiod vf ball game, 



ALEXANDER HENRY. ^1 

and then followed a most shocking massacre. The 
surprise of the fort and the success of the red men 
were complete. 

The details of this dreadful event are vivid- 
ly and harrowingly given by the English trader, 
Alexander Henry, sojourning at the time, with his 
goods, within the stockade, and who was a partici- 
pant in the dreadful scenes and experiences. The 
humble Henry may well be called the Father of 
History, like another Herodotus, as far as this 
episode is concerned. Excepting the very meagre 
report of the humiliating capture made by Captain 
EUierington, the officer in command, there seems 
to be nothing but the narrative of this English 
trader. His description of the fort, the purpose it 
had been serving, the movements of the Indians 
preceding the affair, as well as the minute descrip- 
tion of the stratagem and its success, and the terri- 
ble scenes enacted, is the chief source of informa- 
tion; and one can take up no history of this period 
and this locality without seeing how all writers are 
indebted to his plain and simple narrative. 

When the fort was captured by the savages, 
he himself was hidden for the first night out of 
their murderous reach, but was discovered the 
next day. Then followed a series of experiences 
and hair-breadth escapes and turns of fortune very 
remarkable, while all the time the most barbarous 
fate seemed impending, the suspense in which made 
his sensations, if possible, only the moj*e distress- 
ful and torturing. It was not enough that his 
goods were confiscated and his very clothes strip- 
ped off his body, but his savage captors thirsted 



22 EARLY MACKINAC. 

for his blood. They said of liim and their other 
prisoners, that they were being reserved to "make 
English broth." After four days of such horrors 
there came a turn Avhich Henry saj's gave "a new 
color to my lot. " During his residence at the post 
before the massacre, a certain Chippewa Indian 
named Wawatam, who used to come frequently to 
his house, had become very friendly and told him 
that the Great Spirit pointed him out as one to 
adopt as a brother, and to regard as one of his own 
family. Suddenly, on the fourth day of his cap- 
tivity, Wawatam appeared on the scene. Before a 
council of the chiefs he asked the release of his 
brother, the trader, at the same time laying down 
presents to buy off wliatever claims any may have 
thought they had on the prisoner. Wawatam 's 
request, or demand was granted, and taking Mr. 
Henry by the hand he led him to his own lodge 
where he received the utmost kindness. 

A day or two afterwards, fearing an attack of 
retaliation by the English, the whole body of 
Indians moved from the fort over to our island as 
a place of greater safety. They landed, three hun- 
dred and fifty fighting men. Wawatam was among 
them, with Henry in safe keeping. Several days 
had passed, when two large canoes from Montreal, 
with English goods aboard, were seized by the 
Indians. The invoice of goods contained among 
other things, a large stock of liqnor, and soon mad 
drunkenness prevailed. The watchful and faithful 
Wawatam told Henry he feared ho could not pro- 
tect him when the Indians were in liquor, and 
besides, as he frankly confessed, "he could not 



ALEXANDER HENRY. 23 

himself resist the temptation of joining his com- 
rades in the debauch." He therefore took him up 
the hill and back in the woods, and hid him in a 
cave, where he was to remain hidden "until the 
liquor should be drank." After an uncomfortable 
and unrestful night, Henry discovered next morn- 
ing, to his horror, that he had been lying on a heap 
of human bones and skulls. This charnel-house 
retreat is now the well-known "Skull Cave" of the 
Island, one of the regular stopping places of the 
tourists' carriages. 

But we cannot follow trader Henry's fortunes 
farther. In a relation between guest and prisoner, 
and generally treated with respect, moving with 
the band from one place to another, following the 
occupation of a hunter, and taking up with Indian 
life and almost fascinated by it, he at length finds 
himself at the Sault, where soon an opportunity 
opened for his deliverance and his return home. 
Subsequently he made another trip to the country 
of the upper lakes and remained for a longer time. 
Of his good friend Wawatam, it is a sad tradition 
that he af terAvards became blind and was accidental- 
lyburned in his lodge on the island at the Point, 
formerly known as Ottawa Point, in the village, 
then as Biddle's, and more recently as Anthony's 
Point. 

It may be that some have felt incredulous in 
respect to Henry's thrilling tale. But there is 
reason to think it entirely trustworthy. It is con- 
tained in a book which he wrote, entitled "Travels 
and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Teri'i- 
tories, between 1760 and 1766." It was first pub- 



24 EARLY MACKINAC. 

lished in 1808, and is dedicated to Sir Joseph 
Banks, "Baronet of his Majesty's Privy Council 
and President of the Royal Society." Some copies 
contain the author's portrait. It has long been 
out of print, and copies of it to-day are very rare 
and command a high price. Mr. Henry's residence 
in his latter years was at Montreal, and he was 
still living as late as 1811, an old man past eighty 
years of age, hale and cheerful looking. He bore 
a good name and an unquestioned reputation for 
veracity among those who knew him. I have 
already named him the Herodotus of this particular 
period of history. By another person, an enthu- 
siastic English visitor at Mackinac, over sixty 
years ago, he was called also the Ulysses of these 
parts; and of his book it was said it bore the rela- 
tion to the Michilimackinac shores and waters 
which the Odyssey does to the shores of Sicily.* 

*The chronological order in which early travelers and visitors, who 
have left any annals of their journeys, came to this region, may be 
stated as follows: Niccollet, in 1C34; Marquette, 1671; LaSalle and 
Hennepin, IfiTi): LaHoutau. 1G88; Charlevoix, 1721: Alexander Henry. 17C2: 
Capt. John Carver, 1766. 



CHAPTER III. 

The victory of the Indians over at the old fort 
on the Southern mainland was nothing beyond a 
shocking- and atrocious massacre. It was utterly 
barren as regards any permanent res^-ilts, and the 
status of supremacy was not changed. The stock- 
ade had not been destroyed, and British troops 
soon came and resumed possession. Subsequently, 
liowever, the question of transferring the military 
seat of the Michilimackinac region across tho 
Straits to our island came up, and was duly con- 
sidered. Major Sinclair made a careful prelimi- 
nary examination. In a letter written in October, 
1779, he says: "I employed three days from sun to 
sun in examining the Island of Mackinac, on which 
I found great quantities of excellent oak, elm, 
beech and maple, with a vein of the largest 
and finest cedar trees I ever saw. * * The 
soil is exceedingly fine, with abundance of lime- 
stone. * * The situation is respectable, and con 
venient for a fort." He also mentions that he 
found on the island "a run of water, sutficient for 
a saw mill. ' ' 

He submitted drawings and cuts of the island, 
and plans for fortification, to Gen. Haldimand, the 
officer in command of the department, and whose 
headquarters were at Quebec. The superiority of 
the island, as a strong position against Indian 
attacks, and Indian threats and insults, was pointed 

25 



26 EARLY MACKINAC. 

out; also its advantages in having one of the best 
harbors in tlie upper country, and as respects the 
fishing interests lil^ewise. It is thought, too, 
that the transfer Avas somewhat connected, in the 
British mind, with the American war of the Revo- 
lution, which was then in progress. Sinclair spoke 
of the ' 'liability of being attaclved by the Rebels, " 
at the old fort, and that the place might "justly be 
looked upon as the object of a separate expedi- 
tion. " Asa precautionary measure, he made every 
trader take oath of allegiance to the king, and to 
hold in "detestation and abhorrence the present 
unnatural and horrid rebellion. " At any rate, the 
garrison did not feel safe in a mere stockade of 
timbers on the mainland. Gen. Haldimand ac- 
cordingly gave orders for the removal. The fol- 
lowing letter on the subject was written by him, 
April 16, 1780, to Major DePeyster, formerly in 
command of the old Mackinac fort, but who had 
been transferred, the year before, to the command 
at Detroit. '^ 

"Sir — Having long thought it would be expedi- 
ent to remove the fort, etc., from its present 
situation to the Island of Michilimackinac, and 
being encouraged in this undertaking by advanta- 
ges enumerated by Lt. Gov. Sinclair, that must 
result from it, and the earnest desire of the traders. 



*Ma3or DePeyster was of American bii-th, and had served in the 
British army in various parts of this country, besides commanding at 
Mackinac, and afterwards at Detroit. He held a commission for 77 
years, and lived to the age of 96. He spent his latter years in Dumfries, 
Scotland, the early home of his wife. During his residence there, he 
and the poet Burns were great friends. Burns addressed one of his 
fugitive poems to DePeyster, 



REMOVAL TO THE ISLAND. 27 

I have given directions that necessary preparations, 
by collecting materials, etc., be made with as much 
expedition as possible, as the strength of that post 
will admit of. I am sure it is unnecessary to 
recommend to you to furnish him every assistance 
he may require, and that Detroit can afford, in for- 
v^arding this work, farther than by giving you my 
sanction for the same, which I do in the fullest 
manner. '' 

A government house and a few other buildings 
were at once erected on the site of the present 
village; the old block houses were built, and His 
Majesty's troops took possession on the 13th of 
July, 1780, Major Sinclair commanding, though 
the entire removal was only gradually effected. 

The Indians, as proprietors of the land, had 
been first consulted about this occupancy, and 
agreement and treaty terms were obtained. The 
consideration was £5,000. Two deeds were 
signed, with their mark, by four chiefs, in behalf 
of themselves aiid all the Chi^^pewas. One was to 
be lodged with the Governor of Canada, and one to 
remain at the island post; while the chiefs engaged 
to preserve in their villages a belt of wampum 
seven feet long, to be a memorial of the trans- 
action. But it seems that after the work was 
under way and the post established, the Indians 
showed discontent, and threatened the troops; and 
so serious was the hostility manifested, that 
Sinclair sent in. great haste to Detroit for cannon. 
The vessel was back in eight days, bringing the 
guns, and as soon as she touched on the harbor she 
fired a salute, and that "speaking out" by the 



28 EARLY MACKINAC. 

cannon's mouth at once settled the question, and 
the poor Indians had no more to say. 

The old site being abandoned (since ^^hen it is 
often referred to as "Old Mackinaw,") and the 
garrison removed, the families of the little settle- 
ment, could not do otherwise than follow the fort. 
Many of the houses were taken down and trans- 
ported piecemeal across the straits, and set up 
again as new homes on the island. And hai'dly 
were the settlers thus re-established before they 
addressed a petition to the government, asking for 
remuneration to compensate for the loss and ex- 
pense incurred, on the ground that their removal 
was in the interest of the State and the public wel- 
fare. What response was made to this petition I 
have found no record which tells. 

The tirst commandant of the island. Major 
Sinclair, was also known as Lieutenant Governor. 
It appears that he had been appointed inspector 
and superintendent of the English forts, and bore 
some general civic position as representative of 
the government, besides his military rank; also as 
having charge of Indian affairs. Hence he is fre- 
quently spoken of in the records as Gov. Sinclair, as 
well as Major. It seems to have been on this ac- 
count, as an officer with a more embracing scope, 
rather than as of higher military rank, that he 
superseded Major DePeyster, in command at old 
Mackinac, in 1779. After the transfer he remain- 
ed two years in charge of the new post. Sinclair 
appears, from the style of his letters and reports, a 
more cultured and better educated man than some 
of his cotemporaries among the officers of that 



CAPTAIN ROBERTSON. 29 

period. But his services as a post commandant 
and general manager of affairs, seem to have been 
unsatisfactory, because of his lavish expenditures, 
and because of "abuses and neglects in different 
shapes, " as it was said. He was continually being 
cautioned from headquarters in regard to his 
financial transactions. For half a century and 
more, after he left the post, the inhabitants con- 
tinued to talk about his extravagance; and one of 
the stories long current on the island, was that he 
had paid at the rate of one dollar per stump for 
clearing a cedar swamp in the government fields 
at the w^est end of the village. It subsequently 
appears that, on his return to England, this reck- 
lessness in expenditure wiiile on the island led to 
his imprisonment for debt. He speaks himself, in 
one of his letters, of being "liberated upon paying 
the Michilimakinac bills protested. " 

Major, or Governor, Sinclair was succeeded by 
Captain Daniel Robertson, who seems to have been 
in command from 1782 to 1787. This Robertson is 
also called Robinson, and is the one whose name 
will probably be always associated with the island, 
and a figure mark in the guide books and the 
traditionary stories — for when will "Robinson's 
Folly'' cease to be visited and talked about? 

The official annals of that time show a great 
many of Captain Robinson's letters, written wiiile 
he was commandant of the post. He seems to have 
been a rough-and-ready, enei-getic officer; not v^ery 
elegant in his style of composition or his orthogra- 
phy, iDrosaic and practical, and perhaps not quite 
fulfilling the sentimental and romantic ideal which 



so EARLY MACKINAC, 

some of the legends and stories, connecting his 
name with the "Polly,'' would suggest. In one of 
his reports of this i\nn\ a very good plat is given, 
showing the contour of the island and the location 
of the fort, and the harbor bearing the iiame, 
"Haldimand's Bay," named, presumably, in honor 
of the English couimander of the province.''* In a 
letter of April, 17(S3, the Captain commends the 
climate of Mackinac as "preferable to any in 
Canada, and very healthy;'' but he says "it is an 
expensive place. *' He tells in 178-4 of the wharf 
being broken to pieces by the ice, so that no kind 
of craft could be loaded or unloaded, but that he 
set men to work and got it in repair. He adds: 
"It was a very troublesome job." He wants to 
know, he says, in one of his letters, whether or not 
he is to "have any rum;" and again he says, he is 
at a loss to know how he is to act at this post 
without that liquor, and he is sorry he is "obliged 
to cringe and borrow rum from traders on account 
of Government." At another time he writes, "I 
have had no rum this season, and you know it is 
the Indian's God. '' And yet again he pours forth 
his complaint: "Rum is very much w^anted here 
for various purposes, particulai'ly for Indians, and 
I have had only seven barrels this twelve month." 
However, it is but due to the Captain to say 
that, unfortunately, he was not alone in this 
opinion of the indispensableness of rum in the re- 
lations of the whites and the military with the 

*The name Avas evidently given up after the island changed its flag 
In the early days, subsequent, it was familiarly designated by the island 
people as 'The Basin." 



THE FORT GRADUALLY BUILT. 31 

Indians. We find Major Sinclair, his predecessor, 
as commandant of the fort, writing to General 
Haldimand in 1781, as follows: "The Indians can- 
not be deprived of nearly their usual quantity of 
rum, however destructive it is, without creating 
much discontent." There is a sad vein running 
through all this early history, made by rum; first 
as one of the government supplies to the Indians, 
and next as an article of traffic. The poor red 
men facetiously called it "The English Milk;" but 
their more serious name for it was the truer one, 
"Fire water."* 

Robertson, (Robinson) was in command from 
1782 to 1787. There are intimations of his having 
been disapproved at Gen. Haldimand 's head- 
quarters. Captain Scott succeeded him — "sent in 
the room of Robertson," as the record reads. It is 
reported of Scott, that ' 'he gained infinite credit 
at Mackinac but, poor fellow, his pocket had paid 
for it." He was followed by Captain Doyle, who 
seems to have remained in command of the post 
imtil its delivery to the United States. 

The fort was not built complete at once, but 
gradually took on its dimensions and its strength. 
In 1789, after an inspection by the Engineer's 
Department, the fortifications, as originally design- 
ed, were reported as being only in part executed, 
and that the work had been discontinued for some 



*H. M. Robinson in liis interesting booli, "The Great Fur Land," 
descriptive of the regions of the Hudsons Bay Company, says of the 
Indian's liquor, '"It must be strong enough to be inflammable, for he 
always tests it by pouring a few drops in the fire." 

"The effects of ardent spirits in the lodge, are equal to the appear- 
ance of a grizzly bear amongst th^m."— Schoolcraft. 



32 EARLY MACKINAC. 

years, and that in the mean time a strong picket- 
ing had been erected around the untiuished works. 
And again, as late as 1792, the plans were reported 
as not yet finished; the officers' stone quarters were 
only about half completed; the walls w^ere up the 
full height and the window frames in, but the roof 
and floors w^anting. (Sharp criticism was made, 
too, by the officer then inspecting, on the wdiole 
design of the fort.) And yet again, in 1793, the 
commandant, Captain Doyle, writes concerning the 
"ruinous state of the fort, " but says he purposed 
''sending to the saw mill for planks, and would 
give the Barracks a thorough repair, having re- 
ceived orders from His Excellency, Maj. Gen. 
Clarke, to that purpose;*' also asking for "an 
engineer and some artificers to render the misera- 
ble fortress in some degree tenable " 

It is not a fort of to-day's construction. It is 
a military structure of a century ago, a memento 
of the past, and replete in historic reminiscence. 
As a fortification, it is a curious mixture of Ameri- 
can frontier post and old-Avorld castle. Its thick 
walls and sally-ports, and bastions and ditch, 
along wnth its old block-houses of logs, loop-holed 
for musketry; its sloping path down to the village 
street, buttressed along the hillside with heavy 
masonry, above wiiich grow grass and cedars up 
to the foot of the overlooking old "officer's quar- 
ters" — all this makes it a striking and picturesque 
object, a sort of mountain fortress, and certainly 
something unique in tliis country, 



CHAPTER IV. 

Although the war of the Revolution had been 
fought, and American independence acknowledged; 
and the Treaty of Paris in 1783 had secured all this 
upper lake country on the same boundary lines as 
we have them to-day, yet it was thirteen years 
afterwards before the American flag floated over 
the island fort. It was the same also in respect to 
four or five other posts which were situated on the 
American side of the lakes. Washington, then 
President, sent Baron Steuben to Gen. Haldimand, 
commissioned to receive them; but Haldimand re- 
plied he had no instructions from his government 
to make the delivery, and that he could not even 
discuss the subject. The Government, too, by 
John Adams, our minister to England, had insisted 
on the same, but without effect. England urged 
in explanation of her course, that it was due to an 
imperfect fulfillment on our side of some of the 
treaty stipulations. It required another treaty 
(this matter, however, being only one of many 
points embraced in it) before the tardy transfer of 
these stations on the confines was effected. It was 
then agreed that on June 1st, 1796, they should 
be evacuated by the English. Owing to delays on 
the part of Congress, our occupation of the posts 
was deferred beyond that date. As Washington 
said in his address to Congress, December, 1796: 



34 EARLY MACKINAC. 

"The period during the kite session, at wliicli the 
appropriation was passed for carrying into effect 
the treaty of amity, commerce and navigation, be- 
tween tlie United States and His Britannic Majesty, 
necessarily procrastinated the reception of the 
posts stipulated to be delivered, beyond the date 
assigned for that event." He adds: "As soon, 
however, as the Governor General of Canada 
could be addressed with propriety on the subject, 
arrangements were cordially and promptly con- 
cluded for their evacuation, and the United States 
took possession of them, comi^rehending Oswego, 
Niagara, Detroit, MichilimackinacandPt. Miami. "'^ 
In the case of Fort Mackinac, it was not until 
October 2nd, of that year, that the actual transfer 
was made. 

But, besides negotiating with the English in 
the recovery of Mackinac, the American govern- 
ment had to deal with another class of proprietors 
— the original possessors of the soil. Accordingly, 
while the delivery of the island and post was still 
pending, Gen. Wayne's treaty with the Indians, 
(Treaty of Greenville) was made in August, 1795, 
by which "a tract of land was ceded on the main, 
to the north of the island on which the post of 
Michilimackinac stands, to measure six miles on 
Lakes Huron and Michigan, and to extend three 
miles back from the waters of the lake on the 
strait." t Bois Blanc, or White Wood Island, was 
also ceded as the voluntary gift of the Chippewas. 
The Indians were to receive $8,000 annually, besides 
120,000 then distributed. 

*American State Papers. tHolmes' Amevicuu Aunals, Vol 2, p. 402. 



REPAIRS ORDERED. 35 

Perhaps the unfinished state of the post, as 
reported in 1792, and the complaint made of its 
condition in 1793, and its sore need of repairs, 
(referred to above), may be explained on the 
ground that the English authorities, well knowing 
it was within American lines, and apprehending 
that it must soon pass out of their control, deemed 
it unwise to incur any large expenditure on it. 
In fact, we find Captain Robertson saying in a 
letter, as early as 1784, that in compliance with 
orders he had received, no more labor was given 
to a post which by treaty had been ceded to the 
Americans, than was necessary to ' 'command some 
respect for the safety of the garrison and traders, 
surrounded as I am by a great number of Indians 
not in the -best humor. " It is probable, therefore, 
that when at length it came into our hands it was in 
need of considerable attention, for we find Washing- 
ton, in the same address to Congress just quoted 
from, saying of these posts that "such repairs and 
additions had been ordered as appeared indispen- 
sable."* It is also probable that the American 
force sent to occupy tlie post at the departure of 
the British soldiers was quite imposing, as we have 
Timothy Pickering, Washington's Secretary of 
War, in his report of February, 1796, saying: "To 
appear respectable in the eyes of our British 
neighbors, the force with which we take possession 
of these posts should not be materially less than 
that with which they now occupy them. This 
measure," he adds, "is also important in relation 
to the Indians, on whom first impressions may 
have very beneficial effects." * Accordingly, the 

-■Ameiican btaLe Piipers, 



36 EARLY MACKINAC. 

first detachment to occupy Mackinac, as an Ameri- 
can garrison, consisted of four officers, one com- 
pany of Artillery and Engineers, and one company 
of Infantry, Major Henry Burback being in com- 
mand of the wliole force. The British retired to 
the island of St. Joseph, on the Canada side a little 
above Detour, and established a fort there. 

Following tlie change of liag and sovereignty, 
nothing very stirring seems to have developed in 
the island history during the years immediately 
succeeding. It soon became, however, a great 
commercial seat and emporium in the wilderness. 
The chief commodity was furs. From an early 
day this liad been a business carried on by the 
individual traders who went among the Indians. 
Later many of those engaged in it combined, and 
about 1787 formed the famous "Northwest Corn- 
pan 3^ *' which became a most powerful organization, 
and which "held a lordly sway over the wintry 
lakes and boundless forests of the Canadas, almost 
equal to that of the East India Company over the 
realms of the Orient." Its headquarters was Fort 
William, on Lake Superior, and the fields of 
operation lay principally in far northern latitudes. 
The success of this company led to similar enter- 
prises in the territory lying south and west, with 
cur island as the head-center. There was a 
"Mackinaw Company," and a "Southwestern 
Company," which, uniting under John Jacob Astor, 
became the "American Fur Company." This, 
together with other lines of traffic which it stimu- 
lated, made the island for many years a great com- 
mercial seat. It is reported, for instance, for the 



WASHINGTON IRVING 'S SKETCH. 37 

year 1804, that the goods entered at the Mackinac 
Custom House yielded a revenue to the United 
States of about ^60,000. 

While at this time our island was United States 
territory, and the fort with its ever floating flag 
was a visible token of its Americanism; the village 
as a whole, with its Indian and French population 
and its style of construction — much of its archi- 
tecture being a kind of cross between the white 
settler's hut and the Indian's birch bark lodge — 
perhaps did not appear so characteristically 
American. Let us look at its picture as drawn by 
Washington Irving in his ' 'Astoria. " It is Mackinac 
as seen in 1810. He is describing an expedition 
under way for the far north w^est and the head 
waters of the Missouri, in the interest of Mr. 
Astor's enterprises. The party had fitted out in 
Montreal, under Wilson P. Hunt, of New Jersey; 
and in one of the large canoes, thirty or forty feet 
long, universally used in those days in the schemes 
of commerce, had slowly made their way up the 
Ottawa river, and by the old route of the fur traders 
along a succession of small lakes and rivers, to our 
island. Here the party remained about three 
w^eeks, having stopped for the purpose of taking 
on more goods and to engage more recruits. 
Irving thus describes the place: 

"It was not until the 22nd of July that they 
arrived at Mackinaw, situated on the island of the 
same name, at the confluence of Lakes Huron and 
Michigan. This famous old French trading post 
continued to be a rallying point for a multifarious 
and motley population. The inhabitants were 



38 EARLY MACKINAC. 

amphibious in their habits, most of them being or 
having been voyageurs or canoe- men. It was the 
great place of arrival and departure of the south- 
west fur trade. Here the Mackinaw Company had 
established its principal post, from whence it com- 
municated with the interior and with Montreal. 
Hence its various traders and trappers set out for 
their respective destinations about Lake Superior 
and its tributary waters, or for the Mississippi, 
the Arkansas, the Missouri, and the other regions 
of the w^est. Here, after the absence of a year or 
more, they returned with their peltries, and settled 
their accounts; the furs rendered in by them being 
transmitted, in canoes, from hence to Montreal. 
Mackinaw was, therefore, for a great j^art of the 
year, very scantily peopled; but at certain seasons, 
the traders arrived from all points, with their 
crew\s of voyageurs, and the place swarmed like a 
hive. 

"Mackinaw, at that time, was a mere village, 
stretching along a small bay, with a fine broad 
beach in front of its princijml row of houses, and 
dominated by the old fort, which crowded an 
impending height. The beach w^as a kind of pub- 
lic promenade, wiiere were displayed all the 
vagaries of a seaport on the arrival of a fleet from 
a long cruise. Here voyageurs frolicked away 
their wages, fiddling and dancing in the booths 
and cabins, buying all kinds of knick-knacks, 
dressing themselves out finely, and parading up 
and down, like arrant braggarts and coxcombs. 
Sometimes they met with rival coxcombs in the 
young Indians from the opposite shore, who would 



WASHINGTON IRYING'S SKETCH. ^0 

appear on the beach, painted and decorated in 
fantastic style, and would saunter up and down, to 
be gazed at and admired, perfectly satisfied that 
they eclipsed their pale-faced competitors. 

"Now and then a chance party of 'North- 
westers' appeared at Mackinaw from the rendez- 
vous at Fort "William. These held themselves up 
as the chivalry of the fur trade. They were men 
of iron, proof against cold weather, hard fare, and 
perils of all kinds. Some would wear tlie north- 
west button, and a formidable dirk, and assume 
something of a military air. They generally wore 
feathers in their hats, and affected the 'brave. ' 
'Je suis nn liomme dih nord!^' — 'I am a man of the 
north, ' one of these swelling fellows would exclaim, 
sticking his arms akimbo and ruffling by the South- 
westers, w^honi he regarded with great contempt, 
as men softened by mild climates and the luxurious 
fare of bread and bacon, and whom he stigmatized 
with the vain-glorious name of 'pork eaters.' * * 
The little cabarets and sutlers' shops along the 
bay resounded with the scraping of fiddles, with 
snatches of old French songs, with Indian whoops 
and yells." 

But the reader must not think there was no 
other side to the social life of the early Mackinac 
of that period. Irving's picture is only that of the 
wharves, and the floating population, such as the 
manager of a water expedition, stopping over but 
a little while, would be the most likely to see. 
Although the resident population was very small, 
there were, at the same time, the families of 
settled homes, and with the social interests and 



40 EARLY MACKINAC. 

sympathies and pleasures common to American 
village life — subject of course to many inconven- 
iences and privations incident to their remoteness 
in a wilderness world. I find a pleasing descrip- 
tion written by a lady, who was taken to the island 
when a child, in the year 1812, just before the 
w^ar opened and who spent the years of her girlhood 
there. * 

The houses of the village at that time, she 
says, were few, quaint and old. Every house had 
its garden enclosed with cedar pickets. These were 
kept whitewashed, as also the dwellings and the 
fort. There were but two streets in the village. 
One ran from point to point of the crescent harbor, 
and as near the water's edge as the beach would 
permit — the pebbles forming a border between the 
water and the road. (It w^ill be remembered that 
the water's edge in earlier years was considerable- 
more inland than now.) A foot path in the middle 
was all that was needed, as there were no vehicles 
of any description, except dog-trains or sleds in 
the winter. There were no schools, no physician, 
and no resident minister of religion. Occasionally 
a priest would come on visitation to the Catholic 
flock. In winter the isolation was complete. 
Navigation closed usually by the middle of October, 
and about eight months were passed in seclusion 
from the outer world. The mail came once a month 
"when it did not miss." There were no amuse- 
ments other than parties. The children, however, 

*Mrs. H. S. Baird, who published her Reminiscences in a Green Bay 
Newspaper, 1882, and found in the 'Wisconsin Historical Collections," 
Vol. 9, 






*^^ \ V 



>^i 



'^ 




ANOTHER EARLY DESCRIPTION. 41 

made houses in the snow drifts, and coasted down 
hill. Spring always came late, and as it was the 
custom to observe May day they often planted the 
May pole on the ice. Once she records, for the SUi 
of May, "Ice in the Basin good." She relates that 
in tlie autumn of 1823, the ice formed very enrly, 
but owiiig to high winds and a strong current it 
would break up over and over, and be tossed to and. 
fro, until it was piled to a great height in clear, 
toweriijg blue masses; and all that met the eye 
across to the oj^posite island were bcaulirul 
mountains of ice. The soldiers and fishermen cut 
a road t!i rough. Tliis made a winter's high way for 
the dog sleds, the passage winding between high 
walls of ice, with nothing to be seen but the sky 
above. Again, in other seasons, the ice would be 
perfectly smooth. The exciting times on the Island, 
she says, were when Le Caneau du Novel came. As 
the canoes neared the town there would come 
floating on the air the far-famed Canadian boat 
song. The voyageurs landing, the Indians would 
soon follow and the little island seemed to overflow 
with human life. These exciting times would last 
for six or eight weeks. "Then would follow the 
quiet, uneventful, and to some, dreary days, yet to 
most, days that passed happily." 



CHAPTER V. 

The year 1812 brought our second war with 
the mother country. In it our little island played 
a part, and indeed it may be said to have "opened 
the ball." The very first scene of the war was 
enacted here. The two governments had been 
under strained relations for some time before, and 
on the 19lh of June, of that year, the state of war 
was declared by President Madison. It was a 
mystery at the time, and something wliich excited 
clamor and, in the frenzy of the hour, even insinu- 
ations of treachery against high officials at Wash- 
ington, that the English commanders in Canada 
knew the fact so much in advance of our own. 
One explanation is that our very deliberate Secre- 
tary of War ti'usted to the ordinary postal medium 
in communicating with the frontier troops, while 
the agents of the .English government sent the 
news by special messengers. General Hull, com- 
mander of the department of Michigan, said ho did 
not receive information of the fact until fourteen 
days after war was declared; while General Brock, 
the British commander opposite, had official 
knowledge of it four or five days sooner. And 
likewise Lieutenant Hanks, of our island post, was 
in blissful ignorance of the fact, until he saw the 
British cannon planted in his i-ear, just four weeks 
after war had been determined upon. 

43 



THE FORT SURPRISED 43 

The English officer, Captain Roberts, com- 
manding at the Island of St. Joseph, on the near-by 
Canada border, had received orders immediately to 
imdertake the capture of the strategic point of 
Mackinac. He gathered a force, consisting of 
Canadian militia (the English Pur Co's voyageurs 
and other emj^Ioyees), and a large number of In- 
dians, besides having the regular soldiers of 
the garrison. The expedition was admirably 
managed. An open attack in front would have 
been impossible of success. So, secretly sailing 
from St. Joseph, they landed, unperceived, on the 
northwest side of the island, at 3 o'clock in the 
morning, on the spot known ever since as "British 
Landing. " The troops had an unobstructed march 
across the island and were soon in position with 
their cannon on the higher ground commanding 
the fort in the rear, the Indian allies establishing 
themselves in the woods on either flank. 

The American commandant and his little hand- 
ful of men then learned, at the same moment, the 
two facts, that the United States and Great Britain 
were at war, and that the surrender of Fort 
Mackinac was demanded. Resistance was impos- 
sible, and thus again the flag was raised over its 
walls that had first floated there. Pothier, an 
agent of the Northwest Fur Company, who ac- 
companied the expedition and commanded a jypA't 
of the force, thus laconically reported it to Sir 
Geo. Prevort: *'The Indian traders arrived at St. 
Josei:>h with a number of their men, so that we were 
now enabled to form a force of about two hundred 
and thirty Canadians and three hundred and 



44 Early mackinac. 

twenty Indians, exclusive of the garrison. With 
that force we left St. Joseph on the IGlh, at eleven 
o'clock A. M., landed at Michilimackinac at three 
o'clock the next morninof, summoned the garrison 
to surrender at nine o'clock, and marched in at 
eleven" — just twenty-four hours after setting forth 
on their hostile errand. He adds further, that 
there were between two and three hundred other 
Indian Avarriors who had expected to join the ex- 
pedition, but failed; that two days after llie capitu- 
lation, they came. But he intimates that this band 
w^as in an undecided state of mind and partly inclin- 
ed to favor the Americans. 

Captain Roberts, in his report to General 
Brock, dated the day of the capture (July 17lh), 
says: 'We embarked with two of the six pounders 
and every man I could muster, and at ten o'clock 
we were under weigh. Arrived at three o'clock 
A. M. One of those unwieldy guns w^as brought 
up with much difficulty to the heights above the 
fort and in readiness to open about ten o'cloct?:, at 
which time a summons was sent in and a capitula- 
tion soon after agreed on. I took immediate 
possession of the fort and displayed the British 
colors." 

As presenting an American account of the 
surprise and capture, the official report of Lieut. 
Hanks is herewith given. It was made to Gen. 
Hull, his commaiiding officer, and was issued from 
Detroit, whither the officers and men of the cap- 
tured garrison had been sent on parole: 



LIEUT. HANKS' REPORT. 45 

"Detroit, August 12th, 1812. 

''Sir: — I take the earliest opportunity to ac- 
quaint Your Excellency of the surrender of the 
garrison of Michilimackinac, under my command, 
to His Britannic Majesty's forces, under the com- 
mand of Captain Charles Roberts, on the 17th 
ultimo, the particulars of which are as follows: 
On the 16th, I was informed by the Indian interpre- 
ter that he had discovered from an Indian, that the 
several nations of Indians then at St. Joseph (a 
British garrison, distant about forty miles) intend- 
ed to make an immediate attack on Michilimack- 
inac. * * * 

'I immediately called a meeting of the Ameri- 
can gentlemen at that time on the island, in which 
it was thought proper to dispatch a confidential 
person to St. Joseph, to watch the motions of the 
Indians. 

"Captain Michael Dousman, of the militia, was 
thought the most suitable for this service. He 
embarked about sunset, and met the British forces 
within ten or fifteen miles of the island, by whom 
he was made prisoner and put on his parole of 
honor. He was landed on the island at daybreak, 
with positive directions to give me no intelligence 
whatever. He was also instructed to take the in- 
habitants of the village, indiscriminately, to a place 
on the west side of the island, where their persons 
and property should be ^jrotected by a British 
guard, but should they go to the fort, they would 
be subject to a general massacre by the savages, 
which Avould be inevitable if the garrison fired a 



46 EARTHY MACKINAC. 

gun. This information I received from Dr. Day,* 
who was passing through the village when every 
person was flying for refuge to the enemy. I 
immediately, on being informed of the apjn'oach of 
the enemy, placed ammunition, etc., in the block 
houses; ordered every gun charged, and made 
every preparation for action. About nine o'clock 
I could discover that the enemy were in possession 
of the heights that commanded the fort, and one 
piece of their artillery directed to the most defense- 
less part of the garrison. The Indians at this time 
were to be seen in great numbers in the edge of 
the woods. 

' 'At half past eleven o'clock the enemy sent in 
a flag of truce demanding a surrender of the fort 
and island to His Britannic Majesty's forces, f 
This, Sir, was the first information I had of the 
declaration of war. 1, however, had anticipated it, 
and was as well prepared to meet such an event 
as I possibly could have been with the force under 
my command, amounting to fifty-seven effective 
men, including officers. Three American gentle- 
men, who were prisoners, were permitted to ac- 
company the flag. From them I ascertained the 
strength of the enemy to be from nine hundred to 

*The Post surgeon. 

tAs to the difference in the hour whicli appears in these thi-ee 
official statements, it is probable each writer had in mind some 
different stage of the event. The question of the surrender of the 
island had its preliminary stage at an earlier hour in the morning at the 
old distillery at the western end of the village, between some of the 
British officers and certain of the citizens, while the formal demand on 
the po.st was not made until later in the day. And, again, Captain 
Roberts may have noted the time of writing his demand at his own 
headquarters and Lieut. Hanks the time it reached his hands. 



LIEUT. HANKS' REPORT. 47 

one thousand strong, consisting of regular troops, 
Canadians and savages; that they had two pieces 
of artillery, and were provided with ladders and 
ropes for the purpose of scaling the works, if 
necessary.* After I had obtained this information 
I consulted my officers, and also the American 
gentlemen present, who were very intelligent men; 
the result of which was, that it was impossible for 
the garrison to hold out against such a superior 
force. In this opinion I fully concurred, from the 
conviction that it was the only measure that could 
prevent a general massacre. The fort and garri- 
son were accordingly surrendered. 

''In consequence of this unfortunate affair, I 
beg leave. Sir, to demand that a Court of Inquiry 
may be ordered to investigate all the facts con- 
nected with it; and I do further request, that the 
Court may be specially directed to express their 
opinion on the merits of the case. 

"Porter Hanks, 
' 'Lieutenant of Artillery. ' ' 
"His Excellency Gen. Hull, 

''Commanding the N. W. Army.'' 

It is not necessary to discuss the question 
whether the surrender at Fort Mackinac, without 
a show of resistance, was justifiable. The garrison 
was but a handful of men. By no fault of his, the 

*A discrepancy in the estimate of troops as made by opposing sides, 
especially in reports from the battle field, is very common. A recent 
History of Canada, however, (published in 1897), is inexcusably out of 
the way, when it makes Captain Roberts' attacking force 'less than two 
hundred," as far as voyagcurs and regulars were concerned, and makes 
no mention whatever of the large number of Indian allies. 



48 ExVRLY MACKINAC. 

Lieutenant in command liad been taken entirely 
unawares. The enemy were in overwhelming 
numbers and occupying' a position with their 
cannon which commanded the fort. Their Indian 
allies were waiting in savage eagerness for the 
attack, and had tlie fighting once begun it would 
have been beyond the power of the officers to re- 
sti'ain them.* 

The capture of Mackinac, the lirst stroke of 
the war, was of the highest importance to the 
British interests. Valuable stores of merchandise, 
as well as considerable shipping which stood in the 
harbor, were secured. It gave them the key to the 
fur trade of a vast region, and the entire command 
of the upper lakes. It exposed Detroit and all 
lower Micliigan. It greatly terrified General Hull, 
who commanded the department of Michigan. It 
arrested his operations in Canada. He said: "The 
whole northern hordes of Indians will be let down 
upon us." His surrender, just one month later, 
was in part due to the panic it caused — one histor- 
ian of that day, saying: "Hull was conquered at 
Mackinac. '' 

On the island, the British proceeded at once to 
strengthen their position. In order to guard against 
any approach in the rear, like the successful one 
they themselves had made, they built a very strong 
earth- work on the high hill, a haif mile, or little 
more, back of the post, which they called Fort 
George, in honor of the King of England. This 
fortification still remains, now known to all visitors 

*John Askin, of the British storelveeping department, and present 
with the besieging force, said, that had the soldiers of the fort tired u 
gun, he firmly believed not a soul c ! t'-^-rm woulcl have been scvcd. 



CONSTRUCTING FORT HOLMES. 49 

as Fort Holmes. In its construction the citizens of 
the village were impressed, every able bodied man 
being required to give three days in the pick and 
shovel work. 

A common error prevails that this ancient 
earth-w^ork was actually constructed the very night 
the British arrived, and that it made part of 
the formidable investment of Fort Mackinac which 
led to its speedy surrender. A moment's reflection 
w^ill show^ this could not have been the case. The 
invading force only landed at three o'clock that 
morning and then, with all their trappings, had to 
march two miles to get into position, and yet were 
ready by ten o'clock to open fire. It is probable 
this hill was the "heights above the fort," to 
which, as Captain Roberts says in his report, ' 'one 
of those unwieldy guns w^as brought up with much 
difficulty;" and that far the Fort Holmes' site 
figured in the demonstration against Lieut. Hanks' 
command. The fortification itself, however, being 
the scientific work of military engineers, and in- 
volving a protracted period of hard labor, was con- 
structed afterw^ards at the British commandant's 
leisure. The other one of Captain Roberts "two 
six-pounders, " together with the great bulk of his 
men, including his Indians, w^e may suppose, oc- 
cupied the ridge of ground, part open and part 
wooded, betw^een the hill and the post, just beyond 
the old parade ground, which lies outside the 
present fort fence. 

Captain Roberts was relieved, September 1813, 
and Captain Bullock api)ointed in his 2:>lace. Col. 
McDonall assumed cliarge in the spring of 1814. 
This oiilcer's name often appears as McDouall. 



CHAPTER VI. 

By Commodore Perry's victory on Lake Erie, 
and General Harrison's victorious battle of the 
Thames, the autumn of 1813 found the Americans 
in possession of Lake Huron, and nearly all of 
Michigan. The re capture of Mackinac was deter- 
mined on. In the early spring- of 1814, an expedi- 
tion for this purpose was planned, wiiich, however, 
did not get under sail until July 3rd, embarking 
from Detroit that day. It was a joint naval and 
military force. There were seven w^ar vessels un- 
der Commodore Sinclair, and a land foi-ce of 750 
men, under command of Col. Croghan. The object, 
besides the retaking of Mackinac, was also to 
destroy the English post at St. Joseph, and to in- 
flict whatever damage it could on the military 
stores and shipping of the enemy on the neighbor- 
ing border of Canada. These war brigs and other 
vessels of the squadron were the largest ever seen, 
up to that time, on the w^aters of St. Clair and 
Huron. The commanders, instead of sailing at 
once to Mackinac, concluded to first dispatch their 
other errands. They found St. Joseph already 
abandoned by the British, but they captured some 
English schooners and supplies. They then turned 
back for Mackinac Island, wdiere they arrived on 
the 25th of July. But no success awaited them 
there. 

The English fully appreciated the great value, 

50 



REINFORCING THE POST. 51 

strategically and commercially, of Mackinac and 
were determined to hold it. They took strong 
measures for its defense. Col. McDonall, who had 
been sent there in May of that year as the new 
commandant, was a very energetic and skillful 
soldier. He brouglit with him fresh troops from 
Canada, ammunition and provisions, and other 
things needful. Besides this fact, the garrison 
were by no means ignorant of the expedition in 
their northern waters, and of its object; and there 
was no possibility of a surprise attack. One of the 
officers belonging to the reinforcement which had 
been sent to the j)ost thus wrote: "After our ar- 
rival at the island all hands were employed 
strengthening the defences of the fort. For up- 
wards of two months half the garrison watched at 
night against attack. " The Indians from the sur- 
rounding country, and Canadians here and there, 
were called in for aid. Besides the additional fort 
which they had built. Fort George, (now Fort 
Holmes, and already referred to) batteries w^ere 
placed at various points outside the walls which 
commanded the approaches to the beach. One 
was on the height overlooking the ground in front 
of the present Grand Hotel, another on the high 
knoll just west of the fort, w^hile others lined the 
east bluff betw^een the present fort grounds and 
Robinson's Folly. 

Our American officers at first thought of erect- 
ing a battery on Round Island and shelling the fort 
from there. A yawl w^as sent with a squad of men 
to reconnoitre, and a spot fixed upon. This w^as 
seen by the English commander and he immediately 



52 EARLY MACKINAC. 

sent over a large detachment of Indians, who 
forced the little party to flee. One of the men, 
however, waited too long, tempted by the berries 
which grew at his feet, and missed the boat and 
was captured. The Indians rowed in with their 
prisoner, chanting the death dirge and expecting 
to dispose of liim on the shore in their nsual 
barbaric manner; and in their wild frenzy of delight, 
some of the squaws, before the canoe had touched 
the beach, rushed into the water, waist deep, with 
whetted knives raised aloft, to begin at once the 
work of savage torturing. But the officer of the 
fort, divining their object, had sent a squad of 
soldiers to protect the hapless prisoner. 

The extended level ground just west of the 
village streets, was also considered as a point 
where a landing could be made, and the taking of 
the fort be attempted, under cover of the guns of 
the vessels. But Captain Sinclair, who described 
the fort hill as a ''perfect Gibraltar, '' found that 
his vessels would only be exposed to a raking fire 
from the heights above w^ithout his being able to 
elevate the guns sufficiently; for return shots. 

After hovering about the island for a week it 
was concluded there w^as no other way than to 
imitate the plan of the successful enemy, two years 
before. So they sailed around to ''British Land- 
ing" and disembarked, August 4th, and marched as 
far as the Dousman farm (now Early's farm). But 
the conditions were entirely different from those of 
two years ago, and the movement was ill-starred, 
and a melancholy failure. According, however, to 
the reports made by the joint commanders of the 



FAILURE OP THE ATTACK. 53 

expedition, it was not so much their plan to at- 
tempt the storming of the works, as to feel the 
enemy's strength and to establish a lodgment from 
which by slow and gradual approaches, and by 
siege, they might hope for success. All such ex- 
pectations were soon dissipated. Facing the open 
field on the Dousman farm w^ere the thick woods. 
This w^as a perfect cover to the Indian skirmishers, 
who, concealed in their vantage points, hotly at- 
tacked our soldiers; to say nothing of an English 
battery of four pieces, firing shot and shells. 
There could be neither advance nor encamping. 
The only wise thing was to retreat to the vessels 
This was done and the expedition left the island, 
having lost fifteen killed and about fifty wounded. 
Major Andrew Hunter Holmes, next in command 
to Colonel Croghan, was one of the slain in this 
most unfortunate and fruitless action. He fell 
w^hile leading his battalion in a flank movement on 
the right. One story is that the gun which pierced 
his breast with two balls was fired by a little Indian 
boy. Another tradition is that the Major had 
been warned that morning, by a civilian aboard the 
vessel, not to wear his uniform which w^ould make 
him a target, but that he declined the friendly ad- 
vice saying, that if it w^as his day to fall he w^as 
ready.* 

Major Holmes w^as a Virginian, an intelligent 
and promising young officer who enjoyed the 
friendship of Thomas Jefferson. He had already 
distinguished himself in a battle near Detroit, and 
had performed well a special service assigned him 

-Charles J. Ingersoll in '•Sketch of the Second War.'' Vol. 2. 



54 EARLY MACKINAC. 

in this same expedition, when at the Sault St. 
Marie. In the official reports of the Mackinac 
battle he was referred to as that "gallant officer, 
Major Holmes, whose character is so well known 
to the war department;" and again as "the valuable 
and ever-to-be lamented officer." His body had 
been carried off the field and secreted by a faithful 
negro servant, and the next day was respectfully 
delivered to the Americans by Colonel McDonall 
and taken to Detroit for burial. A very fitting 
tribute to his memory was it, that when in the 
following year the island again came under our 
flag, the name of the new fort on the summit 
heights, which had been built by the English, was 
changed from Fort George to Fort Holmes. 

The fort being found impregnable by assault, 
no further attempts at capture were made, and the 
expedition returned down the lake to Detroit, the 
most of the soldiers being sent to join General 
Brown's forces on the Niagara. 

But the ambition to regain the island was not 
yet abandoned. It was thought to starve out the 
garrison and thus force a surrender. English 
supplies could now come only from Canada through 
the Georgian Bay. Near the mouth of the Not- 
tawasaga river at the southeast corner of that bay, 
near a protecting block house, was the schooner 
"Nancy" loaded with six months' supplies of pro- 
visions intended for the Mackinac fort. A de- 
tachment of the American troops landing there 
blew up the block house and destroyed the 
schooner and her supplies. There remained now 
nothing more to do than to so guard the waters 



SCARCITY OF PROVISIONS. 55 

that the destitution of the island could not be re- 
paired. Two of the vessels, the "Tigress'' and the 
"Scorpion," were left to maintain a strict blockade. 
This was proving very effective, and provisions ran 
so low in Mackinac, that a loaf of bread would sell 
for a dollar on the streets, and the men of the 
garrison were killing horses for meat. 

The following extract from a letter written by 
one of the English officers depicts the situation 
within the fort at this time: "After the failure of 
the attack, the Americans established a blockade by 
which they intercei^ted our supplies. We had but 
a small store of provisions. The commander grew 
very anxious. The garrison was put on short al- 
lowances. Some horses that happened to be on 
the island were killed and salted down, and we oc- 
casionally were successful in procuring fish from 
the lake. To economize oar means the greater 
part of the Indians were induced to depart to their 
homes. At length we saw ourselves on the verge 
of starvation with no hope of relief from any 
quarter. " 

Diiring all the summer we find Colonel Mc- 
Donall in his letters to the department begging and 
entreating for supplies. 

There were yet other embarrassments. Al- 
though thoughout the whole period the Indians of 
the Mackinac region were allies of the British, the 
alliance was not without its difficulties. Many of 
them showed an indecision when success was 
doubtful, as one of the English agents wrote, and 
"a predilection in favor of the Americans seemed 
to influence them." About the island "they be- 



56 EARLY MACKINAC. 

oame very clamorous, '' another officer said. And 
Col, McDonall spoke of them as "an uncertain 
quantity" — that they *'were fickle as the wind and 
it was a difficult taslv to keep them with us. " He 
was embarrassed, too, by their flocking to the 
island and requiring to be fed. 

But relief, and that by their own sagacity and 
daring, was at hand for the beleaguered garrison. 
When the "Nancy" and the block house on the 
Nottawasaga were destroyed, the officers in charge 
of that supply of stores, Lieut. Worsley, with 
seventeen sailors of the Royal Navy, had managed 
to escape and effect a passage in an open boat to 
the fort at Maclvinac and had reported the loss of 
the stores. Forced by the necessity of the situ- 
ation, a bold and desperate project was undertaken 
— that was, the capture of the two blockading 
vessels. Batteaux were fitted out and equipped at 
Mackinac, manned under Lieut. Worsley with his 
seamen and by volunteers from the garrison and 
Indians, making in all about seventy men. Tliese 
set forth on the bold errand. The Scorpion and 
Tigress were tlien cruising in the neighborhood of 
Detour. On a dark night, rowing rapidly and in 
silence, they approached first the Tigress, which 
lay at anclior off St. Joseph, and taking it entirely 
by surprise, leaped aboard and after a hand to 
hand struggle soon had possession. Its crew were 
sent next day, as prisoners to Mackinac. The 
Tigress's signals were in the hands of the captors, 
and the American pennant was kept flying at the 
mast-head. On the second day after, the Scorpion 
was seen beating up towards her com^^anion ship 



BRITISH APPRECIATION OP MACKINAC. 57 

unaware of its change of fortune. Night comhig 
on she anchored some two miles off. About day- 
light the Tigress set all sail, sw^ept down on her, 
opened fire and boarded and captured her. Sad 
fate, indeed, for these two w^ar vessels, wiiich only 
a year before had honorably figured in Commodore 
Perry's victory on Lake Erie. I prefer not to 
dwell on the mortifying bit of history, except to 
say that candor and justice comj^el our highest 
admiration for this English feat of daring and 
prowess. 

This ended all attempts to dislodge the Eng- 
lish from our island. It remained under their flag 
until terms of peace and settlement w^ere secured 
by the treaty of Ghent, February 1815. Mackinac 
was ever a favorite point in the eyes of the British, 
and all along an object of their strong desire; and 
they were loath to give it up. Col. McDonall, 
the able and successful commandant, si:)oke with 
strong feeling of the "unfortunate cession of the 
fort and the island of Michilimackinac to the 
United States." It had been a matter of official 
complaint and criticism in the province of Upper 
Canada, that after the first war it had been "in- 
judiciously ceded" by the English government. 
John Jay, our American i-epresentative in the con- 
ference of the treaty and the boundary lines, 
found that the commissioners of the Crown were 
more interested in an "'extended commerce than in 
the possession of a vast tract of wilderness." The 
fur trade at that time was the main thing and 
Mackinac w^as the gatewa^^ to all the fur traffic of 
the west and south w^est fields. And again, it ap- 



58 EARLY MACKINAC. 

pears in negotiating the treaty of 1815 that the com- 
missioners of the crown, even when feeling obliged 
to forego a large part of their demands, still held 
ont for the island of Mackinac (and Fort Niagara) 
as long as possible.* Thirty-two years had now 
passed since the American right to the island had 
been acknowledged by thetreaty of 1783. Of these 
3^ears only three had been years of war. But for 
one-half of that whole period the British flag had 
been flying over Port Mackinac. In the complete 
sense, therefore, the destiny of the northwest ^vas 
not assured mitil the treaty of Ghent.f With that 
treaty the question was finally and conclusively 
settled. 

The posts of the English which had been captur- 
ed by us, and ours here and there, which they had 
taken, were to be restored by each government to 
the other. In connection with this mutual delivery 
is an interesting fact mentioned in a private 
letter which Colonel McDonall wrote to his friend 
and fellow officer of the English army. Captain 
Bulger. He says that in the equipment of Fort 
Mackinac, at the time he was making the transfer, 
were cannon bearing the inscrii:)tions: "Taken at 
Saratoga;" ''Taken from Lord Cornwallis," and 
other such, and he speaks of his chagrin in being 
obliged to include, in his restoration of the fort, 
guns which told of English defeat and humiliation 
in the Revolutionary war; and that as an English- 
man he felt "a strong temptation to a breach of 

*Henry Adams' ''History of the United States " vol. 9, p. 34. 
tHiasdale's -Old Northwest/' p. 185. 



HISTORIC CANNON. 59 

that good faith which in all public treaties it is in- 
famy to violate," 

Surely it adds to our antiquarian and patriotic 
interest in the old fort to know tliat guns, captured 
from Burgoyne and from Cornwallis in the battles 
of the Revolution, once held position on these ram- 
parts. 

We do not know how these honorable trophies 
of the Revolution ever found their way to our re- 
mote pioneer out-230st. We do know, however, that 
our loss of the fort, three years before, explains 
how they got back, temporarily, to their former 
English ownership. And now in their alternations 
of estate, after taking pari in keeping off American 
troops from the island, and thus, as it were, re- 
deeming themselves in English eyes from the bad 
fortune incurred in our war for independence, they 
again fell to our hands. And we can appreciate 
Col. McDonall's sense of regret at having to give 
them u-p. It was the same sentiment which Capt. 
McAfee, in his narrative of that war in which he 
himself had a part, tells us was exhibited by some 
of the British officers when by Hull's surrender 
several brass cannon fell to their hands which our 
forces had captared in the war of the Revolution — 
they "saluted them with tears."* 

It is vain to surmise the history of those in- 
teresting guns subsequent tol815. How long they 
remained at the island post, and whether in time 
they were sent to the smelter's furnace, or are still 
in honorable preservation somewhere with other 
war relics, we cannot say. In this connection it 

*''Hisiory of the Late War in the Western Cotmtry." 



60 EARLY MACKINAC. 

may be well to renicirk concerning that old fashion- 
ed cannon which has been lying in position on the 
village beach in front of the "fort garden," a 
familiar object for generations past. The story is 
that the gun figured in Com. Perry's battle on 
Lake Erie, though whether one of his own guns in 
the action or a British gun which h 3 captured is 
uncertain; that it was left here long ago by one of 
the government revenue vessels. Tliat it was put 
in charge of the Mackinac Custom House, and that 
it used to serve on 4th of July and other national 
occasions which called for celebration "at the 
cannon's mouth."' 

Upon their withdrawal from Mackinac, the 
English garrison established themselves on Drum- 
mond's Island in the northern end of Lake Huron, 
and maintained a strong post there. It w^as after- 
wards decided, however, by the joint commission 
ers in settling the boujidary lines between the 
United States and Canada, that that part of the 
lake in which Drummond's Island lay belonged to 
the United States side of the line. Accordingly in 
1828 the British garrison removed, and the island 
was turned 07 er to our government. 

Col. Anthony Butler was the American officer 
to whom the fort was delivered July, 1815, but he 
remained only until the arrangements for evacu- 
ation were completed, when he withdrew to 
Detroit, and Captain Willoughby Morgan became 
the first commandant under the restored American 
regime. From that time on there was a long 
succession of regular army soldiers and officers, 
inhabiting the old quarters and barracks. Many 



SOME OF THE FORT'S EARLY OFFICERS. 61 

of the officers who afterwards acquired hii^li ranlc 
and distinction during our civil war, 1861-1865, 
either in the Union Army or Southern, had been in 
service here as young Captains or Lieutenants. 
Among them were Gen. Sumner, Gen. Heintzel- 
man. Gen. Kirby Smith, Gen. Sihis Casey, and 
Gen. Fred Steele, for whom a fort in the west has 
been named. General Pemberton was once a 
member of the garrison, and in a private letter 
written by one of the citizens in 1840, w^hen the 
little island was ice-bound and there w^as a dearth 
of news, it is incidentially mentioned that "Lieut. 
Pemberton in the fort is engaged in getting up a 
private theatre, in an endeavor to ward off winter 
and solitude," — the young officer little dreaming of 
that more serious drama in w^hich he w^as to act, 
twenty- three years later, as commander of Vicks- 
burg, with Grant's besieging army around him. 

During the civil w^ar, all troops being needed 
at the front, the soldiers were withdrawn from our 
fort. This was but temporary, however, and did 
not mean its abandonment. * Its flag and a solitary 
Serjeant w^ere left to show that it was still a military 
post of the United States. This faithful soldier 
remained at the fort for many years after the w^ar, 
and was known to the visitors as the ' 'Old Serjeant. ' ' 
For a period during the ^vi^ar it was made the place 
of confinement of some of theConfederate prisoners, 
principally notable officers who had been captured, 
at which time Michigan volunteer troops held it. 

At the close of the war the fort resumed its old 

*Occasionally at other times, also, the garrison would be tempor- 
arily sent elsewhere, but this never meant the giving up of the post. 



G2 EARLY MACKINAC. 

time service as a garrison post, generally about 
lifty or sixty men of the regular army, with their 
officers, composing the force. A detachment would 
serve a few years, then be transferred and another 
would take its place, to enjoy in its turn the recup- 
erative climate of the summer, and to endui-e the 
rigors and the isolation of the winters. So the old 
fort continued in use, with its morning and evening 
gun, its stirring bugle notes, its daily "guard 
mount," its pacing sentry, its drill, its ''inspection 
days," until 1895. Then the sharp and decisive 
voice of authority called "halt" to the long march 
of military history in the straits of Mackinaw. 
The United States government, by formal act of 
Congress abandoned the fort, and gave it over, 
together with the National Park of eleven hundred 
acres, to the State of Michigan. The fort w^as dis- 
mantled, the old cannon were removed from the 
walls, and every soldier withdrawn. We do not 
question the fact, that as a fort constructed in 
primitive times it was un suited to the days of 
modern warfare; nor the fact that with the numer- 
ous other well equipped posts, the department is 
maintaining for its troops, this old-fashioned one 
w^as not an absolute necessity. Nor do we ques- 
tion for a moment the propriety of making the 
State of Michigan the legatee and successor to this 
property, if the general government was determin- 
ed to dispossess itself of it. It could not have been 
more suitably bestowed, if it had to i^ass into other 
hands. The commissioners, to whose charge it is 
now committed, appreciate and will cherish that 
historic and patriotic interest which attaches to the 



ITS MILITARY HISTORY CEASES. 63 

old fort, and will keep the grounds intact and care- 
fully guard the buildings. They will aim likewise 
to preserve the trees and the drives of the park in 
that natural beauty which has so long given them 
such charm. But while thus assured, it is at the 
same time a matter of deep regret that the national 
government should have forsaken the island. For 
sentimental reasons alone, even had there been no 
other, the old fort should have been retained as a 
United States post. A military seat which has two 
hundred years or more of history behind it, is not 
often to be found in the western world. Indeed, 
with the possible exception of Fort Marion, the 
old Spanish fortification at St. Augustine, Fla., it 
is doubtful if there be another on this whole conti- 
nent, which could boast of so long a period of con- 
tinuous occupation as old Fort Michilimackinac, 
which was established first at St. Ignace in the 
17th century, then removed to old Mackinaw, and 
since 1780 has been located on our island. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Early Mackinac had among its citizens, sparse 
though its pojHilation was, a number of men of 
strong character and great business enterprise. 
Among them, not to speak of all, were Michael 
Do'jsman, John Dousman, Edward Biddle, Gurdon 
S. Hubbard, Samuel Abbot and Ambrose Daven- 
port. John Dousman, Abbott and Davenport were 
the deputation of three gentlemen referred to by 
Lieut. Hanks, in his report of the surrender of the 
fort, as having accompanied the flag of truce in the 
negotiations between Captain Roberts and himself. 
After the English came into possession, the citizens 
were required to take the oath of allegiance to the 
king. Of those then living on the island, five are 
reported as refusing to do this — Messrs. Daven- 
port, Bostvvick, Stone, and the two Dousmans.* 
With the exception of Michael Dousman, who was 
permitted to remain neutral, they were obliged to 
leave their homes and their property until the 
close of the war. Besides these, there were after- 
wards three men in particular who figured in large 
s]3heres, and were in reputation in other parts of 
the land as well as in this remote wilderness point. 
These were Ramsey Crooks, Robert Stuart and 
Henry R. Schoolcraft. 

Mr. Crooks came to America from Scotland, as 
a young man. His cancer was an active and 

*Biddle and Hubbard were not then residents of the island. Ci 



RAMSEY CROOKS. 65 

stirring one. He was known in connection with 
the fur trade, it is said, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. His business involved much of perilous 
journeying and startling adventure in the north 
and in the far west. He was with Hunt's expedition 
across the Rocky Mountains and to the Pacific 
coast, as far back as 1811, and again the next year 
he made the same overland journey back to the 
East. He was an educated, intelligent man, well 
experienced in human nature, and highly rated for 
his judgment, his enterprise and his integrity. 
He was one of Mr. Astor's right hand men in the 
extensive business of the fur company. In the 
American expedition against the island in 1814, in 
the attempt to dislodge the English, he, together 
with Davenport and John Dousman, had ac- 
companied the squadron — the latter two as expatri- 
ated citizens, well acquainted with the waters, to 
help as guides; and Crooks to w^atch, as far as he 
could, the interests of Mr. Astor.* He did not 
make Mackinac his permanent residence during the 
whole time of his connection with the business, 
but was more or less on the island and engaged in 
its office work. New York, afterwards, was his 
home; and on Astor s selling out, he became chief 
proprietor and the president of the company. It is 
said of him that he concentrated, in his remi- 
niscences, the history of the fur trade in America 
for forty years. He died in New York in 1859. 



*Schoolcraft speaking of Davenport, (who, he says, was a Virginian), 
refers to his thus '-sailing about the island and in sight of his own 
home." He remarks, too. that for his sufferings and losses, he ought 
to have, been remunerated by the Government 



66 EARLY MACKINAC. 

Robert Stuart was also a native of Scotland. 
born in 1784. He came to America at the age of 
twenty -two years, and illustrated the same spirit of 
enterprise and adventure. He first lived in Mon- 
treal, and served with the Northwestern Fur Co. 
In 1810 he connected himself, together with his 
uncle, David Stuart, with Mr. Astor's business, 
and was one of the party that sailed from New 
York by the ship "Tonquin" to found the fur trade 
city of Astoria, on the Pacific Coast. In 1812, it 
being exceedingly important that certain papers 
and dispatches be taken from Astoria to Now 
York, and the ship in the meantime being destroy- 
ed, and there being no way of making the trip by 
sea, Stuart was put at the head of a party to under- 
take the journey overland. Ramsey Crooks was 
one of the band. This trip across the mountains 
and through the country of wild Indians, and over 
arid plains, involved severe hardships and peril, 
and illustrated the nerve, and vigor, and resources 
of the young leader. The party was nearly a year 
on the way. In 1819 he came to Mackinac and be- 
came a resident partner of tlie American Fur 
Company, and superintendent of its entire business 
in the west. He was remarkably energetic in 
business, a leader among men, and a conspicuous 
and forceful character wherever he might be 
placed. In the lack of hotel accommodations his 
home was constantly giving hospitable welcome 
and entertainment to visiting strangers. He dwelt 
on the island for fifteen years, and when the 
company sold out in 1834, removed to Detroit. He 
was afterward appointed by the Government as 



ROBERT STUART. 67 

Indian Commissioner for all the tribes of the north- 
west, and guarded their i)iterests with paternal 
care. The Indians used to speak of him as their 
best friend. He also served as State treasurer, 
and at the expiration of his term of office was 
trustee and secretary of the Illinois and Michigan 
Canal Board. Active in great commercial and 
l)ublic interests, he was also, subsequent to his 
conversion on the island in 1828, zealous and j)rom- 
nent in church work and always bore a high 
Christian character. He died very suddenly at 
Chicago, in 1848. His body was taken by a vessel 
over the lakes to Detroit for burial. In passing 
Mackinac the boat laid awhile at the dock, and all 
the people of the village paid their respects to the 
dead body of one who had been in former years a 
resident of the island, so well known and so greatly 
esteemed. 

In connection with the Fur Company work of 
the island, which these two men did so much to 
promote, it may be well to quote from Mrs. John 
Kinzie, the wife of a Chicago pioneer, who with 
her husband was here in 1830. In her interesting 
book "Wau-Bun, the 'Early Day' in the North- 
west," she thus writes, speaking of that period: 
''These were the i^almy days of Mackinac. It was 
no unusual thing to see a hundred or more canoes 
of Indians at once approaching the island, laden 
with their articles of traffic; and if to these was 
added the squadron of large Mackinaw boats con- 
stantly arriving from the outposts with the furs, 
peltries and buffalo robes collected by the distant 
traders, some idea may be formed of the extensive 



68 EARLY MACKINAC. 

operations and the important position of the 
American Fur Company, as well as of the vast 
circle of human beiugs either immediately or re- 
motely connected with it." 

Henry R. Schoolcraft lived on the island from 
1833 to 1841. He was a native of the State of New 
York. He was a student, an investigator into the 
facts and phenomena of nature, a remarkable 
linguist, a great traveler and explorer, and a 
prolific writer. He was given to archaeological 
researches; he explored the valley of the 
Mississippi; he investigated the mineral resources 
of much of the west, particularly of Missouri; and 
lie discovered the source of the Mississippi river. 
His great w^ork, and by which lie is most known, 
was that in connection with the Indian race, having 
spent thirty years of his life in contact with them. 
Besides his travels among the tribes throughout 
the west and northwest, where his pursuits led 
him, he was the Government agent in Indian affairs, 
first at Sault Ste. Marie for eleven, years, and then 
at Mackinac for eight years. He mentions that 
at one time over four thousand Indians were en- 
camped along the shores of tlie island for a month; 
and that the annuities he paid that year amounted 
to ^370,000 in money and goods. He also served 
in the negotiation of treaties for the Government 
with the tribes. While living at the Sault, he 
married a half-blood Indian girl. Her father, Mr. 
John Johnston, was an Irish gentleman of good 
standing, who, dwelling in the ^^ilderness country 
of Lake Superior, had found a wiTe in the daughter 
of an Indian Chief. Thisdaughter, Miss Joh::ston, 



HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 69 

had been sent to Europe while a young girl to be 
educated under the care of her father's relatives, 
and she became a refined and cultivated Christian 
lady. 

Mr. Schoolcraft in his eight years' residence 
on the island, lived in the house kiiown to all 




HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, LL D. 

readers of Miss Woolson's "Anne" as the "Old 
Agency.*' Rewrites on his arrival: "We found 
ourselves at ease in the rural and picturesque 
grounds and domicile of the United States Agency, 
overhung, as it is, by impending cliffs and com- 
manding one of the most pleasing and captivating 



70 EARLY MACKINAC. 

views of lake scenery.'"* Every subject of scien- 
tific interest, all the physical phenomena of the 
island, and its antiquities and historic features, and 
all questions pertaining to the Indians and their 
race characteristics, their habits and customs, their 
language, their traditions and legends, their 
religion, and especially all that might lead to their 
moral and social improvement — these were matters 
of his constant study. At the same time he kept 
abreast of the general literature of the day, read- 
ing the books of note as they appeared and himself 
making contributions to literature by his own 
books and review articles and treatises, which 
were published in the East and in England. In his 
remote island home, ice-bound for half the year 
and largely shut out from the world, he was yet 
well known by his writings in the highest circles of 
learning. Visitors of note, from Europe as well as 
from the Eastern States, coming to the island, were 
frequently calling at his house with letters of intro- 
duction. He was voted a complimentary member- 
ship in numerous scientific, historical and antiqua- 
rian societies, both in this country and in the old 
world. He had correspondents among scholars 
and savants of the highest rank. His opinions and 
views on subjects of which he had made a study 
were greatly prized. The eminent Sir Humphrey 
Davy, of England, for instance, expressed the 
highest appreciation of certain contributions of 
scientific interest which Mr. Schoolcraft had pre- 



*In the minds of some now livin": on the island he has been confused 
with his brother, Jj,mes Schoolcraft, who also lived in the village and 
was murdered by a John Tanner, in IS',16. 



HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 71 

pared in his island home; and Charles Darwin, in 
his work, "The Descent of Man," quotes with ap- 
proval some opinion he had expressed, and calls 
him "a most capable judge. " Prof. Silliman, also 
ex-Presidents John Adams, Thos. Jefferson and 
James Madison, wrote him letters of marked ap- 
probation respecting a contribution he had written 
for the American Geological Society. Bancroft 
conferred with him before writing those parts of 
his "History of the United States," which pertain 
to the Indians, and was in frequent correspondence 
with him; and Longfellow, in his Hiawatha Indian 
notes, expresses his sense of obligation to him. 
Some of Schoolcraft's lectures were translated into 
French, and a prize was awarded him by the National 
Institute of Prance. Among his frequent corres- 
pondents, as he was an active Christian and in 
sympathy with all church interests, were the 
secretaries of different missionary societies in the 
East, seeking his opinion and his counsel in refer- 
ence to the location of stations and the methods of 
work among the Indian tribes. The amount of 
literary work he accomplished was remarkable, 
especially in view of his public services, which 
often required extensive journeys in distant wilder- 
ness regions, and much of camp life. He w^as of 
remarkable physical vigor and industry, however, 
and it is said of him, that he had been known to 
write from sun to sun almost every day for many 
years. 

Mr. Schoolcraft removed from the island to 
New York in 1831, and after an extensive travel 
through Europe, devoted himself principally to 



72 EARLY MACKINAC. 

literary work. He published about thirty different 
books. These largely pertained to his explorations, 
and to scientific subjects. The chief products of 
his pen in respect to the Indians were his "Algic 
Researches, ' ' and later his very extensive ' 'Ethno- 
logical Researches among the Red Men," which 
was prepared under the direction and patronage of 
Congress. It is in six large volumes with over 
300 colored engravings, and was issued in the best 
style of the printer's art. It is a thesaurus of in- 
formation, and furnishes the most complete and 
authentic treatment the subject has ever received. 
For nearly twenty years Mr. Schoolcraft lived at 
Washington, and died there in December, 1864. 
The Rev. Dr. Sunderland, for over forty j^ears a 
Presbyterian pastor in that city, has said of him: 
"He was a noble Christian man, and his last years 
were spent in tlie society of his friends and among 
his books '^ ^" a modest, retiring, unostentatious 
man, but of deep, sincere piety and greatly interest- 
ed in the welfare of mankind. " 



CHAPTER VIII. 

With the explorer, the trader and the soldier, 
in the early days of the French occupation, there 
came also the missionary. More than two 
centuries ago pioneer Jesuit priests planted the 
cross in these wilds of the upper lakes; first at 
Sault Ste. Marie, as early as two hundred and fifty 
years since, and then in 1671 in our Micliilimackinac 
region of St. Ignace,* on the northern mainland, 
four miles across from the island. The latter work 
is associated particularly with Marquette, who 
founded it, and who w^as one of the most heroic and 
devoted of the early missionaries who came to this 
continent from France. He was a scholar and a 
man of science, according to the attainments of that 
day. It is said he was acquainted with six different 
languages. He was held in reverent esteem, both 
by the savages of the woods and by the traders and 
officers of the settlements. To his culture, his re- 
finement and his siDirituality were added the en- 
thusiasm and daring of the explorer. He w^entout 
to find new countries as also to preach in the pagan 
wilds. In 1673, accompanied by Joliet, he set 
forth from St. Ignace with a small company in two 
bark canoes, on a long voyage of discovery. He 
struck out into Lake Michigan, thence into the 
rivers of Wisconsin, and thence into the Mississippi, 
and floated down that great river as far as to a 

♦Point Iroquois, as it was first known. 73 



74 EARLY MACKINAC. 

point some thirty miles belo\v the mouth of the 
Arkansas river, ahnost to the Louisiana line. 
Til ere the southern journey was ended and the re- 
turn trip was begun — ascending the Mississippi, 
entering the Illinois and thus reaching Lake 
Michigan again. But for Marquette the trip was 
never finished. He died at a point on the eastern 
shore of that lake, about midway between its upper 
and lower ends, and was buried there by his ever 
faithful and devoted Indian companions. Two 
years afterwards his body was exhumed and 
reverently taken back for interment at the St. 
Ignace Mission, which he had longingly desired 
again to reach, but had died without the sight. 
The discovery of his grave in the present town of 
St. Ignace, in the year 1877, has given new interest 
to that locality. 

Following the temporary abandonment of the 
French post of Michilimackinac in 1701, and the re- 
moval of the settlement to Detroit, as already 
referred to, the St. Ignace Mission was given up, 
and the church burned by tlie priests themselves 
in fear lest it should be sacrilegiously destroyed by 
the savages. Subsequently, on the re-establish- 
ment of the fort on the southern peninsula opposite, 
the Catholic mission was revived and the Church 
of St. Ann was organized — the church and the 
entire settlement of families, as well as the garrison, 
being within the palisade enclosure. When in 
1780 the fort was removed to the island — and the 
settlers following— the church was also removed, 
its logs and timbers being taken down sepai^ately 
and then rejointed and set up again. It stood on 



MADAM LA FRAMBOISE. 75 

the old burying lot south of the present Astor 
House. Subsequently it was removed to another 
site. An addition was made extending its length, 
and the old church continued to stand until it gave 
way to the present large edifice, built on the sam.e 
spot, in 1874. As an organization, however, the 
church dates far back to the early days over at 
old Mackinaw. The ground on w^hich the building 
now^ stands was a bequest to the parish by a Madam 
La Framboise, who lived near by, with the stipula- 
tion that at death her body should be buried under 
the altar, in case the church should be removed to 
the place indicated. This being done, the condi- 
tions of the will were fulfilled. This Madam was 
of Indian blood, and the widow of a French fur 
trader. She is reported to have been a woman of re- 
m^arkable energy and enterprise, and on the death of 
her husband ably managed the business he had left. 
She acquired the rudiments of education after her 
marriage, being taught by her husband, and in 
later years made it a custom to receive young- 
pupils at her house to teacli them to read and write, 
and also to instruct them in the principles of her 
religion. Her daughter became the wife of Lieut. 
John S. Pierce, a brother of President Pierce, who 
v/as an ofiicer at the garrison in the earl}' days, 
1815-1820. 

In the early times, the island being so remote 
a pioneer point, and its j^opulation meagre, this 
parish did not always have a resident priest, and 
for much of the time could only be visited by one 
at irregular and often distant intervals. In 1782, 
a petition signed by the merchants and other in- 



76 EARLY MACKINAC. 

habitants of the village, was addressed to General 
Haldimand, the English Governor General of the 
Province, asking that the Government take steps 
to aid in securing a cure, or minister of religion, 
for the stated maintenance of services. There ap- 
pears nothing to show that this was granted. The 
fur trade brought an element of population of a 
very mixed character. There were the educated 
officers and clerks of the company, and the 
voyageurs and trappers, who spent most of their 
time in the woods and on the water, with Mackinac 
as their place of resting and wage-payment, and 
the place of the reckless wasting of their hard, 
earned money. One who knew well the early 
character of the island, said of it, that few places 
on the continent had been so celebrated a locality 
for wild enjoyment; that the earnings of a year 
were often spent in the carousals of a week or a 
day; that the lordly Highlander, the impetuous 
son of Erin, and the proud and indei^endent 
Englishman, did not do much better on the score 
of moral responsibilities than the humble 
voyageurs and courier des hois; that they broke gener- 
ally, nine out of the ten commandments without a 
wince, but kept the other very scrupulously, and 
would flash up and call their companions to a duel 
who doubted them on that point! 

Protestant Missions in the west gradually took 
shape as the settlement of the country advanced 
from the sea-board. The Rev. David Bacon, of the 
Connecticut Missionary Society, the father of the 
late Dr. Leonard Bacon, preached on the island for 
a short time as far back as 1802; not, however, es- 



EPISCOPAL CHURCH ORGANIZED. / i 

tablishing a mission or organizing a church. Then, 
in 1820', the Rev. Jedidiah Morse, D.D., a Congre- 
gational minister, the father of the inventor of the 
telegraph system, visited the island, and made a 
short stay. The same Dr. Morse was the author of 
"Morse's Geography," once extensively used in 
our schools, and still well remembered. In earlier 
years the fort was a chaplaincy post, and the 
clergyman in charge, the Rev. Mr. O'Brien, from 
1842 until the opening of the ci\il war in 1861, 
conducted stated services of the Episcopal form of 
worship, which acconanodated the people of the 
village as well as the soldiers. Out of this work 
grew the Trinity Episcopal Church, organized in 
1873, under the ministration of the Rev. Wm. G. 
Stonex, who continued for some years the resident 
clergyman. For a time the parish held its Sunday 
services in the fort chapel; then the old Court 
House building was used, and in 1882 the present 
Trinity Church building w^as erected, under the 
leadership of the Rev. M. C. Stanley. This re- 
mains still the only organized Protestant church 
on the island. It has, gejierally. a resident clergy- 
man in charge. The Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Davies, 
D.D., bishop of the diocese of Michigan, being a 
summer cottager on the island, frequently officiates 
during the visitors' season. 

To go back again to our earlier period. At the 
time of Dr. Morse's visit to the island, he was 
under commission by the U. S. government on a two 
years' tour of observation and inspection among 
the various Indian tribes with a view "to devise 
the most suitable ]3lan to advance their civilization 



78 EARLY MACKINAC, 

and happiness. "' * He arrived at the island, June 
16th, hi the evening, and writes of the view that 
greeted his eye in the morning — * " "the fort look- 
ing down from the high bluff, and a fleet of Indian 
canoes drawn up on the beach, along which were 
pitched fifty or one hundred lodges — cone-shaped 
bark tents — filled with three or four hundred 
Indians, men, women and children, come to receive 
their annuities from the United States Government 
and to ti-ade. " He remained a little over two weeks 
and preaclKKl in the Court House to large and at- 
tentive audiences. A week-day school and a 
Sabbath -school were formed for the children, and 
arrangements effected for Bible Society and Tract 
Society work. On his return to the East, the 
United Foreign Missionary Society, learning of the 
situation, took steps to plant a mission at Mackinac. 
The island was considered a strategic point for 
such operations, even as previously it had been a 
strategic situation from a military point of view. 
It was a central gathering place for the Indians for 
hundreds of miles away as well as from near at 
hand. The mission was established in 1823. The 
Rev. Wm. Ferry, a Presbyterian minister from the 
East, was appointed superintendent. 

The Mission was designed chiefly as a school 
for the training of Indian youth. It opened with 
twelve pupils. The second year it numbered 
seventy. Two years after the opening of the 
enterprise the large school building and boarding 
house, now the hotel at the east end of the island, 



*From lettei- of instructions written him by John C. Calhoun, Secre- 
tary of War, Feb. 1820. 



GOOD WORK OF THE SCHOOL. 79 

and bearing the original name "Mission House,'' 
was built. In 1826 the Society which had begun 
the work and maintahied it for three years, was 
merged with the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions. Henceforth, until it closed, 
the Mackinac Mission was the work of that Board 
with headquarters in Boston. For several years 
the attendance at the school averaged about one 
liimdred and fifty a year. Major Anderson, of the 
Government service, writing in 1828, says that 
when this mission building was erected it w^as 
thought to be large enough to accommodate all 
who might desire its privileges, but such was the 
thirst for knowledge, that the house was then full; 
and that at least fifty more had sought admission 
that season who could not be received for lack of 
room. 

Besides the rudiments of English education, 
the boys were taught the more useful sort of handi- 
craft and trades, and the girls were taught sewing 
and housework. They were at all times under 
Christian influence, and were sj^stematically in- 
structed in the truths of the Gospel. In the 
Biography of Mrs. Jeremiah Porter, who before 
her marriage was Miss Chappelle, and who spent 
two years (1830-32) on the island, is given an ex- 
tract from her diary, in which she speaks of visit- 
ing the Mission House and hearing the young 
Indian girls, at their evening lesson, repeat 
together tlie 23d Psalm and the 55th chapter of 
Isaiah, paid of hearing a hymn sung "by sixteen 
sweet Indian voices which was particularly touch- 
ing." Thomas L. McKenney, of the Indian Depart- 



80 EARLY MACKINAC. 

ment, gives another interesting glimpse of llie 
school in his book, "Sketches of a Tour to the 
Lakes," published in 1827. He had been sent out, 
the year before, from Washington as joint com- 
missioner with General Cass in negotiating a treaty 
with tlic Indians of the North. Having touched at 
Mackinac he describes his calling, in company with 
Mr. Robert Stuart, at ''the Missionary establish- 
ment in charge of Mr. Ferry. " The school family 
were at supper, and he writes, "we joined them in 
their prayers, which are offered after this meal." 
On another day he again visited the school, and re- 
ported of it: "The buildings are admirably adapt- 
ed for the object for which they were built. They 
are composed of a center and two wings — the center 
is occupied chiefly as the eating department and 
the olhces connected therewith. The western wing 
accommodated the family. In the eastern wing 
are the school rooms, and below, in the ground 
story, are apartments for shoemakers and other 
manufactures. In the girls' school were seventy- 
three, from four to seventeen years old. In 
personal cleanliness and neatness, in behavior, in 
attainments in various branches, no children, white 
or red, excel them. The boys' school has about 
eighty, from four to eighteen. One is from Fond 
du Lac, upwards of seven hundred miles. Another 
from the Lake of the Woods. How far they have 
come to get light !" Referring to the Superin- 
tendent, Mr. Ferry, he speaks of him in terms of 
unqualitied approbation. ''Few men possess his 
skill, his qualification, his industry and devotion 
to the work. Such a pattern of practical industry 



THE MISSION CHURCH. 81 

is without price in such an establishment. Indeed, 
the entire mission family appeared to me to have 
undertaken this most interesting- charge from the 
purest motives." He makes mention of Mrs. 
Robert Stuart as ' 'an excellent, accomplished and 
intelligent lady, whose soul is in this work of 
mercy. This school is in her eyes, the green spot 
of the island. With her influence and means she 
has held up the hands that were ready, in the 
beginning of this establishment, to hang down. 
She looks upon Mr. Ferry and his labors as being 
worth more to the island than all the land of which 
it is composed; whilst he, with gratitude, mentions 
her kindness, and that of her co-operating hus- 
band, " 

Mrs. John Kinzie, already referred to as being 
on the island in 1830, visited the Mission, and in 
her book makes similiar testimony concerning it, 
saying among other things; "Through the zeal 
and good management of Mr. and Mrs. Ferry, and 
the fostering encouragement of the congregation, 
the school was in great repute. " 

A church for the island soon grew out of the 
school. It was Presbyterian in name and foi^m. 
It was a branch of Mr. Ferry's work, and he was 
the pastor during the whole time he remained on 
the island. A church building, the historic "Old 
Mission Church," still standing in its original 
dimensions and appearance, was built in 1829-30. 
Mackin^ic in those days shared with Detroit in 
distinction, the two towns being almost the only 
places of note in the State of Michigan. The Far 
Company's business, together with the general 



82 EARLY MACKINAC. 

trading interests which centered here, brought to 
the island a considerable population. .Thus large 
and interesting congregations were furnished for 
this church. Besides the teachers and their 
families, and the pupils of the mission school, 
there were many families of the village, officers 
and clerks of the company, traders, native Indian 
converts and others, who were members in regular 
attendance. The military post, too, used to be 
represented — officers and men coming down the 
street on Sunday mornings in martial step. The 
soldiers would stack their guns outside in front of 
the church; one of the men would be detailed to 
stand guard over the arms, while the others would, 
file into the pews set apart for their accommoda- 
tion. 

The whole number of members enrolled during 
the history of the church was about eighty, exclu- 
sive of the mission family. As a pioneer church on 
the wilderness frontier, it was remarkable in 
liaving on its membership roll, and among its office 
bearers as Ruling Elders, two men of such stand- 
ing and public name as Robert Stuart and Henry 
R. Schoolcraft. 

The Mackinac experiment of mission work, 
unfortunately, was not continued long enough to 
show the largest results. ^Changes took place on 
the island which seriously affected the situation. 
It ceased to be the great resort for the Indians it 
had been at first. The Michigan lands were 
coming in demand for settlement; and the Govern- 
ment was deporting some of the tribes to reserva- 
tions farther West. Mr. Astor retired from the 



STORY OF CHUSKA. 83 

Fur Company, and that business lost its former 
magnitude. This involved the loss of many 
families and a change in social conditions. In 
1834, Mr. Ferry removed from the island,* as did 
Mr. Stuart, the same year. Thus, for a variety of 
reasons the place ceasing to be an advantageous 
point for the work, it was deemed best to dis- 
continue it; and about 1836 the land (some twelve 
acres) and the buildings thereon were sold, and in 
1837 the Mission was formally given up. During 
the brief history of the school, however, not less 
than five hundred children of Indian blood and hab- 
its acquired the rudiments of education, and were 
taught the pursuits and toils of civilized life, and 
many became Christians. The American Board at 
that time considered that the Mackinac Mission 
had been very successful, especially in its out* 
reaching influence throughout the surrounding 
regions. 

One instance of remarkable conversion in the 
work of the Mission, was that of an old Indian 
necromancer or "medicine man." His name was 
Wazhuska, or more popularly, Chuska. For 40 years 
he had been famous on the island in the practice of 
that mysterious occultism which has often been 
found among low and barbarous races. He was 
supposed by his people to have supernatural 
power, and indeed the instances which liave been 
reported of his strange facility, seem remarkable. 
A sorcerer he might have been called, or, as such 
have also been designated, a "practitioner of the 

*Mr. Ferry settled at what became Gi-and Haven, iu Michigan, 
himself founding the city and also its Presbyterian Church, and coe^- 
tinued to reside there until his death in 1867. 



84 EARLY MACKINAC. 

black art. "' He embraced the Christian faith with 
clear perception of its essential truths, and with 
great simplicity of spirit; and entirely renounced 
all his "hidden works of darkness," together with 
the vice of drunkenness to which he had been lam- 
entably addicted, and after a year of testing and 
probation was admitted to membership in the 
Mission Church. He died in 1837, and was buried 
on Round Island. This story of Chuska and his 
conversion by the power of divine grace, was con- 
sidered of such interest that we find it related by 
Schoolcraft in tliree of his books — his "Personal 
Memoirs," his "Oneota," (a collection of miscellany 
which tells of Chuska under the heading "The 
Magician of the Manitouline Islands,") and in his 
elaborate six volume work published by act of 
Congress. In his account of the case as given in 
the last named publication he furnishes represen- 
tations of the crude pictographic charms, and 
tot(.Mns and symbols, which Chuska was accustomed 
to use in liis pagan incantations, and which at the 
time of his conversion he had surrendered to Mr. 
Schoolcraft. The tale of Chuska is also told by 
Mrs. Jameson in the narrative of her visit to 
Mackinac in 1835; and in Strickland's "Old Mack- 
inaw." 

The Mission given up, the school closed, the 
teachers and their families gone, the trade and em- 
porium character of the village falling away, the 
church organization did not long survive. There 
was no successor of Mr. Ferry in the pastorate. 
Mr. Schoolcraft, as an office bearer in the church, 
and always actively interested in its welfare, did all 



THE OLD CHURCH. 85 

that a layman, so fully occupied as he, could do for 
its maintenance, often conducting a Sabbath service 
and reading a sermon to the people from some good 
collection. But so largely losing its families by 
removal, and unable under existing conditions to 
secure a pastor, the church organization became 
extinct. The church building, however, the "Old 
Mission Church" as it is familiarly known to this 
day, has survived for sixty years the lapse of the 
organization. It is probably the oldest Protestant 
Church structure in tlie whole Northwest." And 
while other ancient church buildings have been en- 
larged and changed in the course of years; an ex- 
tension put on, or a front or a tower added, or other 
material alterations made; this one, from end to end, 
and in its entire structural form, remains the same 
as at the time of its early dedication. It has stood 
four square to all the winds that have blown, as 
' 'solid as the faith of those who built it, "* unchanged 
from its original style and its bare and simple ap- 
pearance, with its old weather-vane and its wond- 
erfully bright tin- topped belfry — a mute memorial 
of a most worthy history of two generations ago. 
Despite its disuse and its increasing dilapidation, it 
has long been an object of tender interest, and has 
been visited by hundreds every season. It is gratify- 
ing, therefore, to know that a number of the summer 
cottagers and other visitors, joined by some of the 
island residents, have purchased the old church, 
and repaired and restored it so as to present the 
old-time appearance in which it had been known 

*Miss Woolson's •Anne."' 



86 EARLY MACKINAC. 

for well nigh seventy years.* The gray weather- 
worn exterior is purposely left unpainted. The 
same old "high-up" pulpit, the plain square pews 
with doors on them, the diminutive panes of glass 
in the windows, the quaint old-fashioned gallery at 
the entrance end — all these features appear as at 
the first. The property is held in trust for the 
purchasers by a board of seven trustees, five of 
whom are to be visitors who own or rent cottages, 
and two to be residents of the village. There is 
no ecclesiastical organization in connection with 
the building, nor any denominational color or con- 
trol. The motive in the movement has been, first, 
to preserve the old sanctuary as a historic relic of 
the island and memorial of early mission work; and, 
second, to use it as a chapel for union religious 
services during the few weeks when summer 
tourists crowd the island. 

*Repaired and restored in 1895. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Our Island in its dimensions is three miles east 
and west, and two miles north and south. It has a 
crescent shaped harbor, which gives the same out- 
line to the village nestling on the rounded beach. 
There can be few places so small and circumscribed 
that can furnish so many pleasing impressions. In 
its antiquarian interest, in its unlikeness to the out- 
side world, in its dim traditions, and in its entranc- 
ing charms of natural scenery , there is found every 
variety for the eye, the taste and the imagination. 
While small enough to steam around it in an hour 
on the excursion boats, it is yet large enough to ad- 
mit of long secluded walks through its quiet, gentle 
woods. In the three score years or more that visi- 
tors have been coming here, there have grown up 
for it such tributes and terms of admiration as^ 
Gem of the Straits, Fairy Isle, Tourists' Paradise, 
Princess of the Islands, and such like. 

Rising almost perpendicularly out of the water, 
one hundred and fifty feet high, with its white 
stone cliffs and bluffs, and twice that height back 
on the ci-est of the hill, and covered with the 
densest and greenest foliage, it is an object of 
sight for many miles in every direction. Through- 
out we find that development and variety of beauty 
which nature makes when left to herself. The trees 
are the maple, and pine, and birch, and old beeches 
with strait and far-reaching branches and with 

87 



88 EARLY MACKINAC. 

ru^^ged trunks, on which can be seen initials and 
dates running back many years — the mementos of 
visitors of long ago. The hardy cedar abounds also, 
and the evergreen spruce, larch and laurel, and 
tamarack. Throughout the woods running in 
different directions, are winding roads, arched and 
shaded by the overhanging tree-tops, as if they 
were continuous bowers, and bewitching foot- 
paths and trails; the fragrance of the fir and the 
balsam is everywhere, and a buoyancy in the 
atmosphere 'which invites to walking — the whole 
tract being safe, always, for even children to 
wander in. You come upon patches of the delicate 
wild strawberry with its aromatic flavor, the wild 
rose, the blue gentian, profuse beds of daisies, 
said to be of the largest variety in America, the 
curious ' 'Indian ^lipes, " luxuriant ferns in dark 
nooks, forever hidden from the sun, and thickest 
coverings of moss on rocks and old tree trunks. 
Then always, from every quarter and in every 
direction, are to be seen the great waters of the 
lakes, so many ' 'seas of sweet water, ' ' as they were 
described by Cadillac, the early French cominander 
in this region — Huron to the east and Michigan 
on the west, with the Mackinac Straits between, 
and all so deep, so pure, so beautifully colored; 
and whether in the dead calm, when smooth as a 
floor, or shimmering and glistening in the sunshine, 
or in the silvery sheen of tlie moon at night, or 
again tossing and billowing in the storm — always 
exercising the power of a spell upon the beholder. 
Ever in sight, too, are the neighboring islands, 
standing out in the midst as masses of living green; 



CURIOSITIES IN STONE. 89 

and the light-houses with tiieir faithful, friendly 
night work; and the young cities on the two 
mainlands in opposite directions; and always the 
i:>icturesque old fort. Then, scattered over the 
islands ai"e glens, and dells, and springs, and fan- 
tastic rock formations, { "rock-osities" they were 
sometimes facetiously called in early days.) Many 
of these formations are Interesting in a geological 
point of view as well as for their marked appear- 
ance and their legendary associations; and two of 
tliem, Sugar Loaf and Arch Rock, have been much 
studied by scientists, and are pictured in cei'tain 
college text books to illustrate the teachings of 
natural science. 

On the eastern part of the island you come on 
certain openings which the earlier French term- 
ed Grands Jardins. Schoolcraft says no resident 
pretended to know their origin; that they had 
evidently been cleared for tilling purposes at a 
very early d'a,j, and that in his time there were 
mounds of stones, in a little valley near Arch Rock, 
which resembled the Scotch cairns, and which he 
supposes w^ere the stones gathered out in the 
preparation of these little fields. These openings 
continued, at times, to be utilized for planting 
IDurposes to a period within tlie memory of persons 
now living on the island. For a long time j^ast, 
however, they have been left alone, and nature has 
beautifully adorned them with a very luxuriant and 
graceful growth of evergreen trees and parterres 
of juniper in self -arranged grouping and order, 
making each such place appear as if laid out and 



90 EARLY MACKINAC. 

cultivated on the most artistic plans of landscape 
gardening. 

For summer comfort — that is, for the escape of 
heat and the enjoyment of sifted, clean, delicious 
air — there can be no place excelling. As an old- 
time frequenter once said of it: ''It must be air 
that came from Eden and escaped the curse. " 
The immense bodies of water in the necklace of 
lakes thrown about the island become the regula- 
tor of its temperature. The only complaint that 
visitors ever make of the climate, is that it is not 
quite warm enough, and that blankets can not be 
"put away for the summer," but are in nightly 
requisition, and that the "family hearthstone" 
claims July and August as part of its working 
season. Malaria and hay fever are unknow^n. Dr. 
Daniel Drake, of Cincinnati, an eminent medical 
authority in his day, thus wrote from the island: 
"To one of jaded sensibilities, all around him is re- 
freshing. A feeling of security comes over him, 
and when, from the rocky battlements of Fort 
Mackinac, he looks down upon the surrounding 
wastes, they seem a mount of defense against the 
host of annoyances from wdiich he had sought 
refuge — the historic associations, not less than the 
scenery of the island, being well fitted to maintain 
the salutary mental excitement. "* 

The island has its legends, and folk-lore, and 
traditionary^ tales of romance and tragedy. There 
is not so much of this, however, as many suppose. 

* "Treatise on the Principal Diseases of North America." p. 348. 
"Hygeia, too, should place her temple here; for it has one of the 
purest, driest, cleanest and most healthful ataxosphares."— Schoolcraft. 



SUGAR LOAF. 



91 



It is small in area and its scope for scenes, and 
tales, and associations is limited. Reference has 
already been made to Arch Rock as the gateway of 
entrance, in the Indian mind, for their Manitou of 
the lakes, when he visited the island, and to Sugar 




SUGAR LOAF- 

Loaf as his fancied wigwam, and to other rock 
formations which towered above the ground and 
w^ere personified into watching giants. The Devil's 
Kitchen, on the southwest beach, has also been 
mentioned, but as divested of all mystery and as- 



92 EARLY MACKINAC. 

sociation with the dim and early past. Ciiimney 
Rock and Fairy Arch are but appropriate names 
for interesting natural objects. The lofty, jutting 
cliff known as Pontiac's Look-out, is undoubtedly 
an admirable look-out spot, and is often so used 
now, as it probably often was in the days of Indian 
strifes when canoes of war parties went to and fro 
over the waters of the Straits. But we can not 
vouch for its ever having been Pontiac's watch- 
tower; for although the influence of that chieftain 
was felt in these remote parts, his home was near 
Detroit, and while w^e read of his travelling to the 
East and the South, and as having had part in the 
battle of Brad dock's defeat near Pittsburgh, we 
find nothing to show that he had ever been so far 
north as our island, or at least had ever sojourned 
there. Lover's Leap, rising abruptly 145 feet 
above the lake, is too good a pinnacle, and too 
suitable for such sadly romantic purpose, as far as 
precipitous height and frightful rocks beneath are 
concerned, not to have suggested the tale of the 
too faithful, heart-sore Indian maiden. The story 
of Skull Cave has already been told; and although 
a piece of history, as far as the name of Henry the 
trader fi^^urosin it, should be justly regarded w^ith 
as much interest as if it belonged to myth and 
fable. But at the same time, with all the modifi- 
cations which a sober realism may demand, there 
is begotten in the mind of every one who breathes 
the soft and dreamy air, and surrenders himself to 
the witchery of the little island, an impression of 
the w^ierd, and the mystical, and the poetic, however 
little defined and embodied it may be. This im- 



ARCH ROCK. 



93 



pression is increased in the sense of charm impart- 
ed by the dim and shadowy past of a noble but un- 
tutored race of nature's children in connection with 
a spot of such rare attractiveness, and which, dis- 




ARCH ROCK. 



similar in formation and character from all the 
other land about, seems as though it were separate 
from the ordinary seats of life. 

Arch Rock has long been celebrated. It ap- 



94 EARLY MACKINAC. 

pears as if hanging in the air, a)id as a caprice of 
nature. It is a part of the precipitous cliff- side, 
and stands a hundred and forty feet above the 
water's edge. It has been accounted for by the 
more rapid decomposition of the loAver than of the 
upper parts of the calcareous stone bank — which 
process, however, it used to be thought, was fast 
extending to the whole. McKenney in his ''Tour 
of the Lakes," published in 1827, thus writes: 
*'This arch is crumbling, and a few years will 
deprive the island of Michilimackinac of a curiosity 
which it is worth visiting to see, even if this were 
the only inducement. " The latter remark is most 
true but we are glad he was so mistaken in the 
first part of his sentence. The arch has survived 
the unfortunate ^irophecy for seventy years, and 
bids fair still to hold on. It is true, however, that 
some portions may have fallen, and the surface of 
the cross-way been reduced, since the days when 
boys played on it, and when, according to an early 
tradition, a lady rode hor&e-back over the span. 

Sugar Loaf is another curiosity in stone; 
conical in shape, like the old-fashioned form in 
which hard, white sugar used to be prepared. In- 
cluding the plateau out of which it rises, it is two 
hundred and eighty- four feet high, erect and 
rugged, in appearance somewhat between a pyra- 
mid of Egypt and an obelisk. Like the Arch, 
it is a "survival of the fittest" — the softer sub- 
stance about it being worn away and carried off 
in the process of geological changes, and leaving 
it solitary among the trees. 

Robinson's Folly is the lofty, broad and blunt 



ROBINSON'S FOLLY. 95 

precipitous cliff at tlie East end of the island, one 
hundred and twenty-seven feet above the beach. 
The origin of the name is uncertain, save that it is 
associated in some way with the English Captain 
Robinson (Robertson) who belonged to the fort 
garrison for seven years, and, as already mentioned, 
was its commandant from 1782 to 1787. There are 
no less than five traditionary stories, or legends, in 
explanation of the name. These stories vary from 
the prosaic and trifling, to the very romantic and 
tragical. A common account is that he built a 
little bower house on the very edge of the cliff 
which he made a i^lace of resort, and revelry may- 
hap, in summer days; and that once, either by a 
gale of wind or by the crumbling of the outer 
ledge of stone, the house fell to the beach below. 
One version of the legend has Robinson himself in 
the house at the time, and, like a devoted sea 
captain "going down with his ship," dashed to 
death in the falL Another is that on one occasion 
when a feast and carousal were projected on the 
cliff, and when the things of good cheer were all in 
readiness, and the partici^Dants, led by their host, 
delaying for a little their arrival, some lurking 
Indians, watchful and very hungry, stole a march 
on the company and devoured all that was in 
sight. 

The other tales are of a ditferent hue. One is, 
that once w^alking near this spot the Captain 
thought he saw just before him, and gazing at him, 
a beautiful maiden, in attempting gallantly to 
approach her, she kept receding, and walking 
backwards as she moved she came dangerously 



96 EARLY MACKINAC. 

near the edge. Rushing forward to her rescue, 
the girl proved to be but a phantom and dissolved 
into thin air, while the impetuous captain was 
dashed to death on the rocks below. Yet anothei* 
is of this order: That Captain Robinson had been 
one of the garrison force at tlie old fort across the 
Straits at tlie time of the massacre iu 1763, and had 
been saved by an Indian girl who was exceedingly 
attached to him. After removing to the island, 
and bringing a white bride there, the Indian girl 
followed him and dwelt in a lodge he had built for 
her on the brow of the great cliff, nursing her 
jealousy and revenge. She begged one last inter- 
view WMth him before leaving the place forever. 
On the Captain's granting this, and standing beside 
her on the edge, she suddenly seized his arm in her 
frenzy and leaped off, dragging him with her to 
death. 

There is one more of this harrowingly tragical 
kind, in the attempt to explain the naming, wdiich 
had much currency in earlier days, and is given in 
tourists' notes of sixty years ago: That Robinson 
had married an amiable and attractive Indian girl, 
Wintemoyeh, the youngest daughter of Peezhicki, 
a great war chief of the Chippe was, and had brougl 1 1 
her to his home at the fort. This aroused the 
deadly hatred of Peezhicki, who had reserved the 
girl for one of the warriors of his tribe. Robinson 
celebrated the marriage by giving a banquet feast 
in his bower on the cliff. The bride was present, 
and a company of guests. The father learned of 
the feast and concealed himself in the cedar bushes 
to shoot the man who had taken his daughter. 



ROBINSON'S FOLLY. 97 

A faithful sergeant, (the story even gives his name, 
MacWhorter,) was present and saw the Indian level 
his gun. He sprang up to protect the Captain, 
and himself received the shot and fell dead. 
Robinson then grappled with the fierce chief, and 
in the struggle the two men came dangerously- 
near the brow. The Indian, with his tomahawk 
raised, took a step or two backward to get better 
poise for his blow. This brought him to the very- 
edge. A piece of stone gave way and he fell, but 
saved himself by catching at the projecting root of 
a tree. The girl now seeing her husband safe and 
only her father in danger, sprang forward to his 
help. He was thus able to raise himself to where 
she stood. Then seizing her around the waist, he 
dashed off from the cliff and both perished to- 
gether. 

The first two of these stories concerning the 
famous cliff, might very naturally suggest the 
name "Polly." But the others smack more of 
profound tragedy, spiced with romance. Of course, 
Robinson was not in the massacre affair of long 
before, across the straits; he being at that time in 
army service, under Gen. Bouquet, against the 
Indians in Eastern Pennsylvania. That he met 
his death on the island by falling over the cliff, or 
even in a more normal manner, is a supposition 
only, without any evidence. There is reason to 
suppose he still "lived to fight another day" after 
leaving the island post. It may be added, too, 
that at the period of his Mackinac command he had 
already seen over thirty years of service in the 
English army, and was no longer in the romance 



98 EARLY MACKINAC. 

and lively heyday of youth. There must, however, 
have been something about a summer bower or 
hut, and something about feasting, and something 
about a dreadful fall, which illustrated the ''folly'" 
of establishing a pleasure resort on the very brow 
of a dreadful precipice. Viewed together, these 
stories all become interesting as throwing some 
light on the origin of myths, and as showing how 
traditions, exceedingly variant, may yet have some 
of the same threads running through them all. 
But I would not philosophize. I simply rehearse 
these stories, the trivial and the grave, and leave 
them to the imagination and the choice of the 
reader. 



CHAPTER X. 

From an early day the island's charm of 
sylvan and water scenery and its delightful sum- 
mer air, together with its historical associations 
and its flavor of antiquity, gave it a wide-spread 
fame. There are but few places anywhere in our 
country that are older as tourist resorts. Seventy 
and eighty years ago visitors were coming here, 
despite the difficulty and tedium in that time, of 
reaching so remote a point. Persors of high 
distinction in public life and in the walks of litera- 
ture, and travelers from foreign countries, were 
often among the visitors; and our island has figur- 
ed in many descriptive books of travel. As some 
of these authors wrote so appreciatingly of the 
island, and as those particular books of long ago 
are now out of print and not easily accessible, I 
think the readers of this sketch will be pleased to 
see a few extracts. These writers all speak of 
having known the island by reputation in advance 
of their coming, and of being drawn by its fame. 

In 1843, the Countess Ossoli, better knowm as 
our American Margaret Fuller, of Boston, spent 
nine days in Mackinac, as part of a protracted 
journey she made in the northwest, and which she 
detailed in her book, "Summer on the Lakes." 
She expressed in advance her pleasurable anticipa- 
tion of "the most celebrated beauties of the island 
of Mackinac;" and then adds her tribute to "the 

99 



100 EARLY MACKINAC. 

exceeding beauty of the spot and its position." 
She arrived at a time when nearly two thousand 
Indians (and "more coming every day") were en- 
camped on tlie beach to receive their annual pay- 
ments from the government. As the vessel came 
into the harbor ' 'the Captain had some rockets let 
off which greatly excited the Indians, and their 
wild cries resounded along the shores. " The 
island was "a scene of ideal loveliness, and these 
wild forms adorned it as looking so at home in it." 
She represents it as a "pleasing sight, after the 
raw, crude, staring assemblage of houses every- 
where sure to be met in this country, to see the 
old French town, mellow in its coloring, and with 
the harmonious effect of a slow growth which 
assimilates naturally with objects around it. "' Con- 
cerning Arch Rock, she says: "The arch is per- 
fect, wliether you look up through it from the 
lake, or down through it to the transparent 
waters." She both ascended and descended "the 
steep and crumbling path, and rested at the sum- 
mit beneath the trees, and at the foot upon the cool 
mossy stones beside the lapsing wave." Sugar- 
Loaf rock struck her as having ' 'the air of a helmet, 
as seen from an eminence at the side. The rock 
may be ascended by the bold and agile. Half way 
up is a niche to which those, who are neither, can 
climb a ladder. " The woods she describes as 
"very full in foliage, and in August showed the 
tender green and pliant leaf of June elsewhere." 
She gives us a view from the bluffs on the harbor 
side: "I never wished to see a more fascinating 
picture. It was an hour of the deepest serenity; 



A SCENE ON THE BEACH. 101 

bright blue and gold with rich shadows. Every 
moment the sunlight fell more mellow. The 
Indians were grouped and scattered among the 
lodges; the women preparing food over the many 
small fires; the children, half naked, wild as little 
goblins, were playing both in and out of the water; 
bark canoes upturned upon the beach, and others 
coming, their square sails set and with almost 
arrowy speed." And a familiar picture is this: 
"Those evenings we were happy, looking over the 
old-fashioned garden, over the beach, and the 
pretty island opposite, beneath the growing 
moon." 

A two-volume book, (published anonymously 
and giving no clue to its author, except that he 
was a practicing physician of New York City), 
titled "Life on the Lakes, or a Trip to the Pictur- 
ed Rocks," describes a visit to Mackinac in 1835.* 
"Though the first glance," he says, "at any looked 
for object is most always disappointing, it is not so 
when you first see Mackinac." A moonlight view 
of the island from the waters, he thus describes: 
"The scene was enchanting; the tall white cliff, 
the whiter fort, the winding, yet still precipitous 
pathway, the village below buried in a deep, 
gloomy shade, the little bay where two or three 
small, half-rigged sloops lay asleep upon the 
water." It reminded him of descriptions he had 
read of Spanish scenery, "where the white walls of 
some Moorish castle crown the brow of the lofty 
Sierra." In describing his stay on the island he 

*The author is supposed to have been Dr. Chandler R. Gilman, of the 
College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. 



102 . EARLY MACKINAC. 

makes interestiniJ: mention of a Sunday service he 
attended at the Old Mission Church. He reports 
the building as neat and commodious, though the 
congregation was small. There was no Protestant 
clergyman on the island, but Mr, Schoolcraft (the 
ruling elder of the church) conducted the service 
and read from some book a very good sermon. 
The Ringing of the choir was excellent, and was 
led by a sergeant of the fort. The whole appear- 
ance of the congregation, he thought, was very 
striking; officers and privates of the garrison, with 
the marks of rank of the one class, and the plainer 
uniforms of the other, were mingled together in 
the body of the church; there were w^ell-dressed 
ladies and gentlemen of the village along with 
those of simpler attire; and here and there were 
Indians wearing blankets, and standing about the 
doors weie others of that race in their ordinary 
savage dress. 

He mentions in evident astonishment, and as 
conveying a hint about the island climate, his 
eating cherries and currants in Mv. Schoolcraft's 
garden in the month of September. And as a 
piece of harmless pleasantry, we may give yet 
another of his observations of sixty-two years ago: 
"There are more cows in Mackinac than in any 
other place of its size in the known world, and 
everj^ cow has at least one bell. " 

English visitors in their tours of observ^ation 
through the United States were often drawn 
thither — making the long journey to these upper 
lakes, and stopping off to see the island of whose 
fame they had heard. Captain Marryatt, first an 



CAPTAIN MARRY ATT. 



103 



officer of celebrity in the English navy, but more 
known in this country as a novelist largely given 
to sea tales, was here in the summer of 1837. In 
his "Diary of America" he writes of Mackinac: 
"It has the appearance of a fairy island floating 
on the water, which is so pure and transparent 




TANGLEWOOD 

that you may see down to almost any depth, and 
the air above is as pure as the water that you feel 
invigorated as you breathe it.* The first reminis- 

*Marryatt's admiration of the transparent waters suggests what i 
find related of a certain lady of long ago, that once sailing in the harbor 
and gazing with rapt fondness into the pellucid depths, she enthusiasti- 
cally exclaimed; 'Oh, I could wish tot)e drowned iu these pure, beauti- 
ful waters! " 



104 EARLY MACKINAC. 

cence brought to my mind after I had landed was 
the description by Walter Scott of the island and 
residence of Magnus Troil and his daughters 
Minna and Brenda, in the novel, 'The Pirate.'" 
The appearance of the village streets, largely given 
to sails, cordage, nets, fish barrels and the like, 
still further suggested the resemblance to his 
mind, and he says he might have imagined himself 
"transferred to that Shetland Isle, had it not been 
for the lodges of the Indians on the beach, and the 
Indians themselves, either running about or lying 
on the porches before the wliisky stores. " 

There were also two lady visitors here from 
England, in the days of early Mackinac: Mrs. 
Jameson and Miss Harriet Martineau. Both have 
high rank and distinction in English literature. 
Each of them published her impressions of Mack- 
inac after returning home. In their admiration 
and enthusiasm for the island they could not be 
surpassed by the most devoted American visitor 
who ever touched these shores. 

Mrs. Jameson is well known as the writer of 
such books as, "Sacred and Legendary Art," 
"Legends of the Madonna," "Essays of Art, 
Literature and Social Morals," ''Memoirs of the 
Early Italian Painters," etc. Miss Martineau 
was of more vigorous intellect, and her writings 
deal more with subjects of political economy and 
social philosophy. She it was, too, who translated 
and introduced into England the writings of the 
French philosopher Comte. As both these books 
which touch on Mackinac, written over sixty years 



MRS. JAMESON. 105 

ago, were descriptive of travels, and not of the 
same general interest which attaches to their other 
writings, they are now out of print and have be- 
come rare. 

Mrs. Jameson's visit was in the summer of 
1835. She came up Lake Huron from Detroit by 
steamboat, and arrived in the harbor at early 
dawn. She thus describes her first view of the 
island as she had it from the deck of the vef?sel: 
"We were Ij'ing in a tiny bay, crescent-shaped. 
On the east the whole sky was flushed with a deep 
amber glow flecked with softest shadows of rose 
color, the same splendor reflected in the lake; and 
between the glory above and the glory below stood 
the little missionary church, its light spire and 
belfry defined against the sky." She speaks of the 
"abrupt and picturesque heights robed in richest 
foliage," and of the "little fortress, snow-white 
and gleaming in the morning light;" of an encamp- 
ment of Indian wigwams, ("picturesque dormi- 
tories," she calls them) up and down the beach on 
the edge of the lake which, "transfused and un- 
ruffled, reflected every form as in a mirror, * * an 
elysian stillness and balmy serenity enwrapping 
the whole." And, again, we hear her speaking of 
"the exceeding beauty of this little paradise of an 
island, the attention which has been excited by its 
enchanting scenery, and the salubrity of its sum- 
mer climate. " 

Mrs. Jameson made quite an extended stay at 
Mackinac, the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Schoolcraft, 
at their home in the Old Agency — "The house em- 
bowered in foliage, the ground laid out in gardens, 



106 



EARLY MACKINAC. 



the gate opening on the very edge of the lake.'* 
She pictures Mrs. Schoolcraft with "features 
decidedly Indian, accent slightly foreign, a soft, 
plaintive voice, her language pure and remarkably 
elegant, refined, womanly and unaffectedly pious." 



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ONE OF THE DRIVES- 

She saw the island throughout, taking tramps over 
it and "delicious drives," and writes of it as "won- 
derfully beautiful — a perpetual succession of low, 
rich groves, alleys, green dingles and bosky 
dales." After her glowing description, she sums 
■up by saying, "It is a bijou of an island. A little 



MISS MARTINEAU. 107 

bit of fairy ground, just sucli a thing as some of 
our amateur travelers would like to pocket and. 
run away with (if they could) and set down in the. 
midst of their fish ponds; skull-cave, wigwams, 
Indians and all." 

Miss Martineau spent two years in this coun- 
try, traveling extensively through the States and 
writing her impressions. She published tv^o 
bool\S as the outcome of tliis journeying, '"Society 
in America.'' and afterguards, her "Retrospect of 
Western Traveling." It was in July, 1836, that 
she visited Mackinac, and it is in the fi.rst named of 
these two books that she tells of it. She came by 
way of Lake Michigan, from Chicago, traveling in 
a slow-going sail-vessel, and approached the island 
in the evening towards sun-setting time. As did 
Mrs. Jameson, so Miss Martineau first pictures it 
as view^ed from the vessel: "We saw^ a white speck 
before us; it was the barracks of Mackinaw, 
stretching along the side of its green hills, and 
clearly visible before the town came into view. 
The island looked enclianting as we approached, 
as I think it ahvays must, though we had the ad- 
vantage of seeing it first steeped in the most 
golden sunshine that ever hallowed lake or 
shore. " 

The day of her arrival was the 4th of July, 
and, "The colors were up on all the little vessels 
in the harbor. The national flag streamed from 
the garrison. The soldiers thronged the w^alks of 
the barracks; half-breed boys were paddling about 
in their canoes, in the transparent waters; the half- 
French, half- Indian population of the place were 



108 EARLY MACKINAC. 

all abroad in their best. An Indian lodge was on 
the shore, and a picturesque dark group stood be- 
side it. The cows were coming down the steep 
green slope to the milking. Nothing could be 
more bright and joyous." 

Describing the appearance of the village, she 
took note of some of the old French houses, 
"dusky and roofed with bark. The better houses 
stand on the first of the three terraces which are 
distinctly marked. Behind them are swelling 
green knolls; before them gardens sloping down to 
the narrow slip of white beach, so that the grass 
seems to gro\^ almost into the clear rippling 
waves. There were two small piers with little 
barks alongside, and piles of wood for the steam- 
boats. Some way to the right stood the quad- 
rangle of missionary buildings, and the w^hite 
missionary church. Still further to the right was 
a shrubby precipice down to the lake; and beyond, 
the blue waters. " 

She did not leave the vessel that evening, but 
some of the party having met the commandant of 
the fort, an engagement was made for an early 
walk in the morning. So they were up and ashore 
at five o'clock, and under the escort of the officer 
they took in the beauties of the hill and the woods. 
And thus she tells us of it: ''No words can give 
an idea of the charms of this morning walk. We 
wound about in a vast shrubbery, with ripe straw- 
berries under foot, wild flowers all around, and 
scattered knolls and opening vistas tempting curi- 
osity in every direction." Coming suddenly on 
Arch Rock, which she calls the "Natural Bridge of 



MISS MARTINEAU. 109 

Mackinaw," she is "almost struck bacl^ wards" by 
the grandeur — "the horizon line of the lake falling 
behind the bridge, and the blue expanse of w^aters 
filling the entire arch; shrubbery tufting the sides 
and dangling from the bridge, the soft, rich hues 
in which the whole was dressed seeming borrowed 
from the autumn sky." 

But especially charming and impressive, she 
thought, was the prospect from Fort Holmes. As 
she looked out on the glossy lake and the green 
tufted islands, she compares it to what Noah 
might have seen the first bright morning after the 
deluge. "Such, a cluster of little paradises rising 
out of such a congregation of waters. Blue waters 
in every direction, wholly unlike any aspect of the 
sea, cloud shadows and specks of white vessels. 
Bowery islands rise out of it; bowery promontories 
stretch down into it; while at one's feet lies the 
melting beauty which one almost fears will vanish 
in its softness before one's eyes; the beauty of the 
shadowy dells and sunny mounds, with browsing 
cattle and springing fruit and flowers. Thus, would 
I fain think, did the world emerge from the flood." 

After their early walk, Miss Martineau and her 
party took breakfast with the courteous comman- 
dant at one of the old stone quarters of the fort, 
and sat' a while on the piazza overlooking the 
village and the harbor. In response to her in- 
CLuiries about the healthfulness and the climate, 
the officer humorously replied that it was so 
healthy people had to get off the island to die; and 
that as to the climate, they had nine months winter 
and three months cool weather. 



110 EARLY MACKINAC. 

The sailing vessel on which the party were 
passeng-ers was bound for Detroit, and the Cai:)tain 
had already overstayed his time. So they had to 
leave that same day. In reference to her departure 
she'writes: "We were in great delight at having 
seen Mackinaw, at having the possession of its 
singular imagery for life. But this delight was 
dashed with tlie sorrow of leaving it. I could not 
have believed how deeply it is possible to regret a 
place, after so brief an acquaintance with it." 
And then she tells how she did, just what thous- 
ands since have done, who after visiting the island 
have regretfully sailed away from it: "We watch- 
ed the island as we rapidly receded. Its flag first 
vanished; then its green terraces and slopes, 
its w^hite barracks, and dark promontories faded, 
till the whole disappeared behind a headland and 
light-house of the Michigan shore. " 

We close Miss Martineau's tribute with this 
comprehensive note of admiration: "Prom place 
to place in my previous traveling, I had been told 
of the charms of the lakes, and especially of the 
Island of Mackinaw\ This island is chiefly knowm 
as a principal station of the great Northwestern 
Fur Company. Others knovv" it as the seat of an 
Indian Mission, Others, again, as a frontier gar- 
rison. It is known to me as the wildest and tend- 
erest piece of beauty that I have yet seen on God's 
earth." 



THE END. Ill 

Captain Marry att, who had read this descrip- 
tion before his visit to the island (already referred 
to) said, when w^riting his own impressions, "Miss 
Martineau has not been too lavish in her praises of 
Mackinaw. ' ' These testimonies by persons of wide 
travel, and of cultivated taste and power of obser- 
vation, and visitors as they were from another 
land, come down to us very pleasantly from sixty 
years ago. 



I know an isle, an emerald set in pearl, 

Mounting the chain of topaz, amethyst, 
That forms the circle of our summer seas— 

The fairest that our western sun hath kissed. 

For all things lovely lend her loveliness; 

The waves reach forth white fingers to caress, 
The four winds, murmuringly meet to woo 

And cloudless skies bend in blue tenderness. 

The classic nymphs still haunt her grassy pools; 

Her woods, in green, the Norseland elves have draped. 
And fairies, from all lands, or far or near. 

Her airy cliffs, and carving shores, have shaped. 

Of old, strange suitors came in quest of her. 
Some in the pride of conquest, some for pelf; 

Priests in their piety, red men for revenge- 
All seek her now, alone, for her fair self. 

David H, Riddle, 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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